In Which There's A Slender Man
by jam-tea
Summary: He'd left work at 8:30, and, as he checked his wristwatch, it was now 10:00. And then he heard it. The silence. The utter, perpetual and ultimately deadly silence... A man with no face was watching him.
1. Chapter I

**Hello and welcome to InWhichThere'sASlenderMan. This is a fic that I've been meaning to write for a while now based upon an image I found, drawn by Ms. Stone, of Hanna and the Slender Man. This was originally supposed to be a one-shot, but after some positive feedback I have decided to make it into a multi-chaptered work.**

**For new readers, and old readers, I have decided to delete and re-post chapters I-VI since I found a large amount of formatting errors that some readers were helpful enough to point out. I have made a few changes _but none of them have to do with the plot of the story. _In this chapter, for one thing, I have changed the consistency of {...}'s name due to readers complaining that the constant name-change was too confusing. I have no intention to change the plot in any way, only grammatical and formatting errors. Transferring coded work from deviantART to has proved to be tedious, but now that I have found a way to get through the challenge I am only too happy to improve my work to better suit your reading.**

**Please bear with these changes, do not fret when you see old chapters being re-posted, and thank you for the support!**

**Hanna is Not a Boy's Name (c) Tessa Stone**

**The Slender Man (c) Victor Surge**

**Enjoy!**

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Chapter I

Galahad set the timer – 20 minutes – on the oven, and crouched down. His amber eyes illuminated the scratched viewing glass, where his nonchalant reflection stared at him. Galahad ignored this, as he usually did. He didn't want to see himself. He didn't care for his appearance – it hadn't changed for a decade, and probably never would. Watching as the baking potatoes began to sizzle and the skeletal stems of the herbs he was trying to grow shrivelled under the heat, Galahad settled himself on the ground in front of the oven, cross-legged. He reached up to the counter and brought down a thickly-bound book which Conrad had lent him, listening to the pages rustle as his fingers laced through them. It was a Stephen King novel. Galahad enjoyed King's work, never quite as disturbed as Conrad warned he may be, and reading was always a good way to spend time while waiting for Hanna to come home.

Which Hanna would not be doing any time soon.

...

Hanna was late, and lost.

"Shit -!" he yelped, for maybe the fourth time, when he tripped on a rock, which might have been the fourth one, and stumbled head-first into the undergrowth, that definitely ended with a fourth bruise.

Groaning, Hanna rolled over in the dirt, feeling his knees sting with cuts and ooze with blood. His glasses had fallen somewhere. He groped for them in the damp ferns and sloppily shoved them onto his face. He let his arm flump down next to him with a long sigh of frustration, stirring droplets of moisture. He stared up into the canopy of the forest, head pounding, regarding the stars as they began to peek through the branches in the darkening sky.

"Irvin," he eventually said aloud, "is going to kill me."

He'd gotten lost when he'd followed a suspicious-looking ball of light into the woods while taking a shortcut home from work. His curiosity, which got the better of his logic, drove him to follow this light right into the heart of the forest until he'd eventually snagged it with his hoodie. He'd expected to have caught some kind of pixie, or maybe an imp, but when he excitedly unravelled the clothing the light turned out to be nothing more than a handful of fat, and very dead, fireflies. After that, Hanna realised just how deep he'd travelled and had tried to make his way back.

He'd left work at 8:30, and, as he checked his wristwatch, it was now 10:00.

And then he heard it.

The silence.

The utter, perpetual and ultimately deadly silence.

Hanna stopped breathing. His fingers dug into the earth, heart thumping hard in his chest, mounting terror freezing his insides. He waited for the rustling, for the slight shift in the air, for the barest of sifting of soil molecules. For what felt like hours he lay there, not breathing, not moving. Beads of sweat were trailing down his temples, brought on by the thick heat of summer, and his mind was racing with thoughts. Hanna knew it wasn't an animal or a human. None of those species could produce the subtle popping of his ears as the supernatural planes were breached, nor could they produce the asphyxiating effect of magic rushing through his veins and towards his fingers, nor could they rouse the soft throbbing in his hollow chest which told him how far – or how close – something was.

There were too many possibilities as to what it was, but it had to be something big or something powerful to have caused such a sudden and overwhelming silence. _It could be djinn, _Hanna thought as his mind sprinted, _or a vampire, or even a wendigo – _he stopped himself, throat tightening abruptly. The throbbing in chest had altered. It was gradually growing stronger, harsher, grating against his ribs. Hanna's eyes widened._Scratch that. Irvin won't kill me – whatever the fuck is _behind _me will beat him to it._

_..._

Irvin looked up at the clock on the wall, feeling a flicker of worry. It was already 10pm, and Hanna wasn't home. Then he remembered the red head telling him that he may be late some days, due to Target having a sale, so he dismissed this concern and reached up to turn off the oven light – but paused, for the worry hadn't gone away, and was in fact growing. This seemed to be an instinctive feeling developed by the many months of living with Hanna and his danger-prone ways. Irvin had felt it often, but it wasn't always accurate in its suggestions. He looked at the clock again, the slightest of a frown curling his lips, watching as the bent second hand made its sluggish way across the minutes.

_TK._

_TK._

_TK._

Irvin flicked the oven light off, and returned to chapter eight.

...

Hanna didn't know if he was being chased, but he was running away regardless.

The wind and foliage whipped at him as he pumped his arms furiously, skimming through the forest in the direction he thought was back to the city. His knees were hurting and his lungs were burning, but nothing could compare to the pounding, jarring, scraping in his chest which caused the staples in his flesh to contract painfully. The last time he had felt such a rush of experience was when Lee Falun's ghost had shuddered through him. Even then it wasn't as strong as it was now. Whatever was causing such an outthrust of magic had to be ancient, powerful and very deadly. Hanna wasn't looking forwards to the outcome.

It was deep into the night now, turning the forest to nothing more than a mess of sharp yet blurred shades of darkness. The summer warmth turned the air solid with humidity and raised a sluggish fog from the ground. It trickled and seemed to grow thicker as Hanna ran further, and no matter how many times the red head changed his path the fog followed him, soaking him through with damp, weighing his steps down with its invisible hands. His sneakers slopped sickly on the ground, which was quickly turning to a soup-like mash of spongy pine needles and mud, sucking at his feet, taunting his slowness, his gradual weakening. He was running out of breath. The adrenaline was struggling through his arteries. Even the thrumming in his chest couldn't shove him on any more. He had to stop.

He slowed down, allowing himself to stumble and clumsily collapse against a tree. He slid down and his body went limp on the ground, hands falling into his lap as he leaned his head against the hard bark. Chest rising and falling rapidly as he sucked in bitter oxygen, his head lolled to the side –

A man with no face was watching him.

...

Irvin turned the page, three paragraphs into chapter thirteen. His eyes flicked up to the clock. It was 10:45pm. That nagging worry still tugged at him, and he tried to persuade himself that Hanna was fine and had probably just been asked to work an extra hour or two to help out at Target. _But how many people are still shopping at ten at night? _he questioned vaguely. He drew his eyes away from the clock and back to King's written world of horror.

...

Hanna stared at the man, paralysed. The man stared at Hanna, motionless. He had no eyes, but he was staring.

It felt like Hanna's chest was threatening to split open. But the red head could not raise a hand to push at the pain. He felt sick, weak and powerless, like his skin was made of cement and his blood of tar. His face felt like it was melting, sweat dripping down his nose. His glasses were fogged up and cracked, but he could see the man clearly.

Hanna was terrified. And yet – there was an odd lilt in his mind. Something like curiosity, almost fascination, which Hanna sensed when he stared at the man's blank face. It made Hanna feel... safe, content, childlike. It was like something was quietly pushing the terror away, quelling his urge to get up and run, and pulling away a thought _which was actually trying to tell him something really important -!_

Hanna smiled.

The man with no face shifted ever so slightly at this, and without a sound began walking towards him on two impossibly long and black-clad legs. His arms stretched out in elegant loops, fingers thinning and curling like gelatinous calcium, slim and fluid strings of inky darkness pooling from his sides in long tentacles – beckoning, encouraging, hungry. Hanna just smiled as he walked closer, though he was confused when his thoughts, as they lulled and melted, clung to his mind with a kind of urgency that made the red head's smile falter for a second.

The man vanished, reappeared, like static. He stopped a few feet away from Hanna, and Hanna recognized a kind of puzzlement surrounding the ethereal figure. He hesitated, but started to walk towards Hanna again, tentacles slithering out more cautiously, sticking closer to the man, as if vipers who tasted the air for threats.

Hanna started to smile again, and the man's pace grew quicker, the arms stretcher out further, the tentacles reaching out, anticipating, eager -

A stab of blackthorn pain in Hanna's chest erupted with such velocity Hanna lurched forwards, gasping in agony and clutching his chest. Abruptly all the fear and horror and pain and panic returned. It slashed through his mind and drew back his thoughts, which were screaming. _Don't look up, don't look behind you, don't look up - _He looked up, and the man was gone.

And then it dawned on Hanna.

_"The Slender Man."_

_..._

It was 11:29pm. Irvin realised this when he finally looked up from the third-last page of his book and could barely make out the clock on the wall. This was due to the apartment being swathed in pitch-black night. He was aware of a faint whining sound, and a thumping like heavy footfalls on the stairs. It started to get closer, and louder, until he could hear it coming down the corridor.

He got to his knees with a start, the book falling from his fingers, and he swivelled around to switch the oven light on. It lit up the baked potatoes, which had sunk to starchy lumps in the pan, and allowed Irvin to see the reflection of Hanna just as the whining turned to a full-fledged scream and the thumping of feet hit the apartment door and the red head crashed inside.

"Hanna!" Irvin cried, instinctively pushing himself up.

Hanna slammed the door closed, driving the key into the lock hurriedly with shaking hands and cursing loudly. Once the key gave a loud and sharp _click, _a marker was withdrawn and a clumsy ruin was inscribed on the handle. It glowed a harsh red almost instantly. Hanna withdrew and backed away, hands held out before him sparking with magic and sweat dripping from his face.

"Hanna –" Irvin started to say again, reaching for the red head. Hanna whirled around with a yelp, magic spitting violently, eyes wide with fear. Irvin stepped back, surprised.

Realising it was just his partner, the red head's tensed shoulders relaxed and the magic snuffed out of his hands. "Holy shit, it's just you, Raphael" he breathed, and stumbled forwards to fall into the zombie's arms. He hugged Raphael tightly, so tight that Raphael got the impression that Hanna thought he was about to disappear.

"Who else would it be?" he asked, alarmed by the implication. He pried the smaller man from him and held him by the shoulders, studying Hanna's dishevelled and trembling form.

The red head's clothes were torn by what looked like foliage, damp with sweat and covered in mud. Raphael's eyes lit up his cracked glasses, his mess of hair, his pallid face, his electric blue eyes staring up at him with fading terror and confusion. "What happened, Hanna?" the taller man demanded, mentally cursing himself for not trusting his worry's judgement. His mind was jumping through the probabilities of what had caused Hanna to make such a scene like lightning.

"N-nothing!" Hanna squeaked, lifting up his hands in a gesture of earnest.

Raphael felt a lurch of panic in his chest and his hands moved quickly to Hanna's arms, where an abnormal amount of bruises laced around the smaller man's wrists and hands in a curling bracelet of burst blood vessels and contorted muscles. Raphael's brow creased. It was like something had wrapped itself around Hanna's arms and had not intended to let him go.

He looked down at Hanna's scared face. "This," he said quietly, tracing his thumbs lightly across the bruises and causing Hanna to wince, "is not nothing."

Hanna started to say something, thought better of it, and let out a shaky _Okay fine _sigh. Looking around, Hanna leaned in and spoke in a hushed voice despite that there was no other body in the room. "It's the man_," _Hanna hissed, and he met Raphael's steady gaze with his own petrified one. _"The Slender Man."_

Raphael blinked, taken aback. Almost immediately as the words were admitted something cracked against the window, loud and abrupt enough to momentarily stop Hanna's heart.

Hanna, paralysed in that moment, stared at the window and the white spot where something had hit it. To his increasing terror, despite the heat of the summer air outside frost was beginning to stretch itself across the damaged area, like an alien awakened from its slumber.

Cautiously, anxiously, Hanna started towards the window. Raphael, wary, followed close behind him. They both approached the glass and, tentatively, Hanna got up onto a stool to reach the tiny portal. His legs were shaking as he got up, so much so that Raphael had to hold the stool to prevent the red head from toppling.

Hanna felt the pain in his chest wrench hard enough for him to inhale sharply, making him twitch his hands out to grasp the ledge of the window for support. A flash of adrenaline whipped through him. It took a while for Hanna to coax it away, and it took even longer before Hanna could dare to drag his eyes down to the street below. He felt every inch of courage dwindle as he shifted his gaze, felt every individual beat of his heart hurl against his ribs, felt his retinas burn with fear as he got closer and closer to once again seeing that impossibly tall silhouette standing and watching him – and finally Hanna looked at the street, where the forest turned to street, where he had ran blindly onto the asphalt.

The Slender Man wasn't there.

But one thought in Hanna's mind was.

_Don't look behind you._

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**Please read and review, critique where necessary as you will help me develop my writing further.**

**No flames, thank you.**


	2. Chapter II

**Chapter II! Now involving Cash.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter II

"Don't look where?"

Hanna's eyes snapped open and his head shot up into the air. A sharp CRK! and his entire body shuddered with shock as his forehead met some hard surface before him. _"Shit -!"_ he yelped, recoiling in pain to clutch at his thumping head. He was vaguely aware that something was clamped around his wrist, and it hadn't let go.

There was a snort of contempt somewhere close to him. "Serves you right," a voice from that vicinity muttered. "Considerin' how you totally ditched me back there in the women's department."

_Ditching? Women's department? _Hanna couldn't decipher the words as he looked up, trying to see through his swimming vision. He felt his heart constrict unexpectedly at seeing a blurred figure bending over before him – a black silhouette against retina-blinding white light. For some reason this brought on the vision of a similar silhouette who had stood before him, except in a place that was a lot darker, a lot more quiet, and Hanna was a lot more... _afraid?_

Hanna's eyes widened, and the grip around his wrist seemed to strengthen in its presence. It was tight, cold, assertive, and not intending to let go. Just like –

The Slender Man.

_Fuck._

"HOLYSHITGETTHEFUCKOFFME_GETOFFGETOFF -!"_

"The fuck -? Hanna! Hanna _shut the fuck up!_" The figure beside him hissed urgently, fixing its grip on Hanna's wrist even tighter as the red head flailed and struggled. "You're freakin' the customers out!"

"GET OFF –" The grip left his wrist to his mouth, muffling Hanna's screams.

The red head forced his eyes to focus, bewildered, and the silhouette took on the form a young man with a mop of blond hair, crouching next to him and looking disturbed. Hanna thoughts struggled at first to process the familiarity of the young man, but soon they clicked together with an audible _snap_.

"C-Cash...?" Hanna stammered, voice coming out strangled in the young man's cupped hand, the fear petering out to be replaced by confusion and, mostly, relief.

"No shit, Sherlock," the blond rolled his eyes and pulled his hand away, consciously wiping it on the shirt Hanna recognized to be part of the Target uniform. Cash gave Hanna a frustrated look, "Thanks to your little _freak out,"_ he started, "I expect the boss'll have a real stick up his ass. 'S bad enough you fell asleep during our shift, now the customers probably think I'm some _psycho_ tryin' to rape you, or somethin'..."

Shaking his head and still complaining about Hanna's lack of responsibility, Cash got to his feet and lifted Hanna up with him, who was silent and weak-legged with perplexity. The red head, as he fought back the vertigo, slowly began to recognize the environment of white plastic and red banners which surrounded him – his workplace, Target.

He looked down and saw that he'd been 'sleeping' under the desk in Customer Relations, which Hanna couldn't even remember getting _close _to never mind falling _asleep_ under. He took off his glasses, massaging his sore temples with a sigh.

His entire body was pulsating with dwindling fear, his mind trying to recover from being thrown from one reality to the next without getting a map in the process. _Why,_ he managed to think while watching Cash walk over to a water filter, _am I at work? I was in the forest, I was running home... Galahad was there and he was worried, and Slender Man was behind me... so I –_

"Wait a minute," Hanna said aloud, his thoughts sharpening. He stared at his glasses, more specifically, at the right lens. There was supposed to be a crack there, and mud was supposed to be caked between the screws and frames from where he dropped them. But his glasses were in perfect condition (well, _perfect_ according to Hanna's concept of the word), not a scratch of evidence pertaining to the struggle Hanna thought, and felt like, he had endured only a few moments ago.

"What?" Cash asked him, strolling back to Hanna with a plastic cup filled with water. Hanna accepted it, but didn't drink.

He looked up at Cash, brows furrowed with confusion. "You said I fell asleep," the read head stated, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together. "How long was I out for?"

Cash shrugged, a lazy rise and slump of relaxed shoulder blades. "I dunno, man," he replied, sounding earnest. "Maybe one or one an' a half hours, maybe? But you were talkin' a lot," he suddenly added, apathetic expression turning to one of seriousness. "Like, a shitload. You kept on sayin' _don't look, don't look!_ to me like there was some kinda...uh, some kinda _monster_ or somethin' behind me."

"You could say that," Hanna replied, an answer that surprised both himself and Cash. Hanna waved a hand dismissively. "It's nothing, dude," the red head assured his co-worker. He tried to smile but his facial muscles were too stiff to do so.

_So it must have just been a dream,_ he rationalised, deflating with respite, _just a really fucked up dream about some dude that doesn't even exist._

Cash looked uncertain, "M'kay," he eventually agreed, bringing Hanna back to the present. He tossed a clumsy gesture over his shoulder to the Exit. "Maybe you should head home, Hanna," he suggested. "You've been overworkin' yourself - and your lean, green band-machine boyfriend will agree with me on this one," he interjected as Hanna began to argue.

Hanna's face turned a flattering shade of scarlet. "H-he's not my boyfriend!" he spluttered, alarmed at the connotation.

Cash smirked, "Sure," he replied. He flicked his wrist to regard his watch, "It's nearly 10:30, you should get goin' if you wanna catch the 11pm bus."

Hanna shook his head. "That takes way too long, bro," he pointed out. "I'll just take the shortcut through the woo –" his voice cracked, unexpectedly, but Cash cut him off before he could notice.

"The woods? At this time of night? Naw, dude – that's just askin' for trouble. Here –" he fished around in his jean pockets, produced a few quarters and tossed them at Hanna, who fumbled to catch them. The blond tapped the side of his nose, an action that Hanna noted to be very Ples-like. "You never know what crazy voodoo stuff goes down there."

"'Voodoo stuff'...?"

"Oh, yeah – stuff like them tree people, Edward Cullens or that, um, that creepy guy."

Cash's knowledge of paranormal entities, or lack thereof, never ceased to amuse Hanna. "The Green Man?" Hanna offered, wondering what 'voodoo' character it was the blonde was hinting at.

"Naw, that dude... yanno – whatshisname in the suit! Has no face, kidnaps kids and stuff..."

Hanna's heart skipped a beat, though he tried to keep his face still. "The... _Slender Man?"_he managed to suggest, not understanding as to why the hairs on the back of his neck were prickling at the mentioning of the name. He tried to laugh, more to calm himself than to be cynical. "You do realise he's just a myth, right?"

Cash made an apathetic noise. "I dunno, man – there's been a lotta reports about him," he said, looking uncharacteristically grave. "You never know what's possible these days."

Hanna understood that all too well. Shrugging, he downed the cup of water, now luke-warm from the amount of sweat generated by his trembling hands. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and put the quarters into his jean pocket, trying another smile, but once again failing. The image of Slender Man kept creeping into his mind. "Guess I'll see you tomorrow," he said, carefully pushing himself away from the desk.

Cash nodded, "Take care, dude," he said. "And don't get yourself killed."

Hanna made a 'pfft' sound. "C'mon, Cash, you know me," he joked, already heading for the door.

"Exactly," Cash replied after him. Hanna reached for the Exit door handle, about to leave before Cash called him back. He looked at the blond expectedly, who still looked grave. "Just... always look behind you, okay?"

...

It was dim and uncomfortably warm in the parking lot which sat behind Target, but Cash's words had chilled Hanna. His stomach was twisting enough to cause him to stop and stoop over to ease the tension, all the while looking out and observing the almost-empty space. There were no cars save for his boss's rusted Hyundai and a few bikes parked against the columns.

Hanna, normally, would not have been deterred by such bareness. But now, with the dark of the night intensifying every moment that dragged by, it threw a kind of suffocating alienation over the investigator's shoulders. One that made his head, which had been throbbing ever since his collision with the desk, pound even louder.

He turned his head, apprehensively, to the exit. For some reason, Hanna didn't want to go out there. He felt as if somebody – or _something_ - was waiting for him.

_Yeah, right,_ he told himself when he recognized this feeling, straightening with a flinch. _I'm just being paranoid._ He tucked his hands into his hoodie pockets, rubbing circles around his abdomen in attempt to soothe the tension, and walked outside.

Instantly he was met with sticky, hot summer air. It clung to his face like a forgotten but unwanted lover. It almost choked the breath out of Hanna's lungs with its thickness. Such a feeling flowered a heaviness in his lungs, bringing him back to being in the woods, running, struggling to breathe, his chest ablaze with erratic, warning pain –

The red head inhaled sharply, tripped, caught himself on a streetlight. He gritted his teeth, shoving the image out of his mind, his head thudding loudly, his chest aching. _"Shit!" _he cursed, one hand to his head, shutting his eyes against his swaying vision. "Why does this keep happening? It was just a fucking _dream!_"

Angrily, Hanna pushed himself away from the streetlight and stumbled into a dazed walk towards the bus stop. He ran a hand through his hair, shuddering at the dampness, and tried not to think about the dream or what Cash had told him. So far it had only caused his head to hurt and made him start to psych himself out, which was beyond stupid in his opinion.

He could have sworn, however, that he'd heard himself say such a thing.

The red head turned the corner of a street, his chequered sneakers squeaking as they stuck to the pavement. Cars passed him in a blur of yellow lights, not even the wake they left able to stir the concentrated humidity. A glance upwards and Hanna caught the stars struggling to escape the forming rainclouds. _They're probably suffocating - just like us,_ he thought gloomily, looking back down.

As he walked, anger diffusing, he was aware that his sneakers weren't squeaking any more. He was also aware that he couldn't hear the whirring of cars, or see any for that matter. Even the buzz of the streetlights were gone. There was only silence.

Fear started crawling up his spine again, hooking its fingers around every vertebra and dragging its curling, wreathing mass upwards. Hanna quickly tried to banish it, his heart beginning to beat faster, but it continued to inch its way up. It grew in its nauseating concentration the closer Hanna got to the bus stop.

The silence continued to grow louder. It was like something had stolen life's voicebox, and now that thing was waiting for him, anticipating his arrival, contemplating every step he took.

Hanna couldn't stop his breaths from getting smaller, sharper, couldn't stop the cold sweat starting to drip down his face, couldn't calm his entire body trembling with an apprehension that was almost _childlike_ in its absurdity.

He was about twenty feet from the bus stop when a sudden, but familiar, stab of white-hot agony scoured through his ribcage. It made the fear falter, retrieved life's voicebox and lifted the stupor from Hanna's mind. It happened so quickly and so abruptly that it caused his body to short-circuit with adrenaline.

Hanna lurched forwards, dazed, and was close enough to grab the bench of the bus stop to balance himself. He heaved a breath and nearly the contents of his stomach, filling his aching chest with air regardless of its unpleasant soup-like quality. He shakily raised a hand to his head, the thumping of his brain filling his ears. He opened his eyes, meeting a blanket of white which momentarily alarmed him but he quickly realised was just fog.

Groaning with both frustration and pain, Hanna peeled his glasses off his face and clumsily scrubbed the moisture from the lenses with the hem of his hoodie.

"Christ," he muttered to himself once his thoughts had plucked themselves from the ground, wincing at how the pain in his chest rose and fell in violent swoops. "You'd swear I had some irrational fear like anatidaephobia or somethin'."

Once confident that the lenses were clean, Hanna straightened and pushed his glasses onto the bridge of his nose. His vision instantly cleared, the blurred picture that was the other side of the street now the perfect image of –

The Slender Man watching him.

Hanna froze. His heart leapt in his throat.

The fear flickered dimly back into existence, but was hushed by another calmer, less threatening feeling. A soft fascination eased itself into Hanna's mind, slipping past every screaming, writhing, struggling thought as quietly and softly as a ghost, its touch of slow but painless paralysis.

Hanna could feel the blood slowly, silkily drain from his face to his frantically palpitating heart. But whenever he tried to focus on this one part of him that still had the ability to move, his attention was drawn back to the figure standing on the opposite side of the road.

The buildings, the cars, the noise of the city was reduced to still silence. The orange glow the streetlights reduced the environment to faded to the rich, mossy black and brown of the forest. Hanna could feel the bark behind his back, the sharp splinters digging into his hoodie, he could smell the damp released from the fallen pine needles he trod on, he could hear the silence. And he was staring at the Slender Man, and the Slender Man was staring back.

The Slender Man slowly cocked his head to the side in a calculating manner, and Hanna could almost see his non-existent eyebrows furrowing with thought. Hanna caught the long, elegant fingers twitch, and that one little movement was enough for his chest to explode with pain.

His mouth snapped open, jaw cracking, a scream of complete and utter terror beginning at the back of the throat –

A snarl of sound and a violent blur of metallic silver severed the bond which fastened Hanna to the spot. He gasped and stumbled backwards, colliding against the bench and sprawling onto it, his heart racing and chest burning as if somebody had forced him to swallow acid. He looked around wildly, chest rising and falling and aching, the noise reducing his thoughts to a bewildered mess.

The thing that had passed him, Hanna realised, was the bus. The forest had dissipated, replaced by the geometric structures of the city. Hanna's eyes shot to across the road, heart skipping a beat, expecting to see the Slender Man still watching him, undeterred by the broken silence.

There was nothing there except an empty bench next to the 53 bus stop.

Once again, Hanna had been thrown from one reality to another without a map.

Hanna jumped when the driver of the bus honked at him impatiently. Wavering, the red head forced himself to look away from where the Slender Man had been standing and get up to walk towards the bus doors. He slowly ascended the steps and smiled weakly at the driver, who didn't even look at him. Trembling, he managed to pry the coins Cash had given him from his jean pocket and slotted them shakily into the ticket dispenser.

With his ticket purchased, Hanna clutched the railing with tight, clammy palms and carefully made his way down the bus. He ignored the looks the other passengers gave him, instead looking solely on the seat next to the window at the very back. He carefully slid into it and rested his forehead against the glass, heaving a unsteady, frightened sigh. He was growing cold despite the heat.

_Maybe Cash and Izahes are right,_ he thought to himself, grimacing at the pain in his chest and pressing the heel of his palm against it, _maybe I have been overworking myself._

Hanna tried directing his thoughts to other things to calm himself down, anything to stop thinking about what had just happened – like finding a cheap and easy way to fix the leak in the ceiling in the kitchen, and that he still hadn't paid for last month's rent, and he should really make up for that drink Conrad bought for him at the bar, and oh _fuck_ he didn't have the runes ready for Worth after that incident with the gargoyle nearly two weeks ago, _and_ he still needed to –

Hanna slumped down in his seat with a groan, pinching the bridge of his nose. Thinking, it appeared, was out of the question.

As the outside passed in smudges of oranges and greys and blacks, Hanna checked his watch. He sat up with a jolt when seeing that it was already 11:30pm. Instantly he thought of Izahes and how worried he must be, and Hanna remembered that he specifically promised his partner that he wouldn't get home later than 11. _Shit, he'll probably pull a third degree on me when I get home,_ he thought, guilt swamping up in his throat.

His heart fell a little more heavier at the next thought. _I should really stop worrying him like this, I just know it'll screw up our relationship – whatever the fuck our relationship is._

Finally, the bus came to a squealing halt at stop 73. Hanna peeled himself from his seat and walked up to the front of the bus, but just as he was about to go out he hesitated. His stomach twisted uncomfortably. He tried to make himself step forwards, but his body resisted the order. It felt like something was waiting for him outside, and he wasn't prepared to meet it again.

"You gonna leave or jus' stand there, kid?" the driver's brief snap made Hanna start and stumble, out of the bus and back into the summer air.

Hanna spun around, throat asphyxiating with fear when the bus pulled off the curb and began to drive away. He was about to run after it, but stopped himself.

_This is ridiculous,_ I'm _being ridiculous,_ he realised, watching the bus's tail lights dwindle into lone specks of red. He rubbed his face with his hands, exhaustion and fading adrenaline weighing down his limbs. Sighing, he turned on his heel and made his way towards his apartment building, walking slowly to allow his heart to catch up with his head.

_There's no such thing as the Slender Man,_ he told himself, stuffing his hands into his hoodie pockets, _I wasn't in the woods, I didn't run away from him and he most certainly was _not _at the 53 bus stop._

He pushed open the doors and entered the lobby, jogging up the stairs two steps at a time with lips pursed. _And contrary to Cash's and others' popular belief – the Slender Man does - not - exist._

Hanna lifted his foot to climb the last set of stairs that led to his apartment, but he didn't step. Instead, he looked over his shoulder.

_Then why do I feel like he's right behind me?_

* * *

**Please read and review, critique where necessary as this will enable me to develop my writing further!**

**No flames, thank you.**


	3. Chapter III

**Chapter III! For those that would like to know, the quote _"Fear has a large shadow but he himself is small" _is said by the wonderful Ruth Gendler.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter III

Hanna's hand hesitated before the doorknob to his apartment. He was shaking. The keys, wrapped around his index finger, rattled and clinked loudly.

The red head wanted very much to go inside, to get away from the darkness that crept up the stairwell, but another part of him didn't. It didn't want to show whatever it was that lurked in the darkness where he lived, where _Ulysses_ lived. _But there's nothing _in _the darkness, _he told himself, _well, nothing at the _moment...

He stared at his apartment key, poised just before the lock, and how the fluorescent lights glinted off it harshly. Hanna peered at it. He was just barely able to make out the warped reflection of the staircase behind him. He wondered if something was standing on that staircase, watching him, but he was too afraid to turn and find out.

It was quiet in the corridor. The couple left of his apartment weren't screaming at each other, maybe they weren't there. There were no unusual hissing cat sounds coming from the apartment to the right, maybe Mrs. Blaney had finally made the tenant get rid of the animal, whatever it had been. And there was no thump-thump-thumping of heavy electronic music from the teenagers upstairs, maybe they'd found another party to go to.

That just left Hanna's keys, clinking like a wind-chime in his trembling hand. The only sound besides the soft creaking of rotting wood in the building. Hanna tried to tell himself that he was just being outlandish, but he couldn't quite believe himself.

...

Ulysses looked up from where he sat next to the oven, hearing the faint, but definitely present, rattle of keys coming from the door. He recognized the sound, and knew it was Hanna, but why wasn't he coming in?

The zombie got up and carefully approached the door, brow knitting slightly with concern. He looked down, saw two shadows displacing the light from outside. Looking back up, he reached for the doorknob and turned it. He peered through the crack and was surprised to see Hanna just... _standing there_. Frozen and staring at his outstretched hand.

Ulysses opened the door fully, worried. "Hanna -?"

The red head jumped, yanking his hand away. For a moment he just stared at Ulysses, owl-like in alarm, and then the zombie suddenly found himself being pushed backwards and the door slamming closed. Ulysses stumbled backwards, catching himself on the kitchen counter and staring at Hanna in surprise as the smaller man hurriedly locked the door and slotted the chain home, the keys clattering like metallic bones in his hands.

Then the red head turned around and leaned against the door, exhaling a shuddering, long breath. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Hey, Leonardo," he greeted the zombie, sounding much more exhausted than he should be.

The now-named Leonardo straightened himself, walking towards Hanna and stopping before him. "And just what," he asked, "was that all about?"

Hanna put his glasses back on, but did not meet the zombie's eyes. "Nothing," he said. He pressed the heel of his palm to his chest, where it ached.

He felt cool fingers slide around his wrist, pulling his hand away. "That," Leonard said levelly, and Hanna finally looked up at him, "was not nothing."

Hanna's heart skipped a beat. "I-I'm sorry?" he stuttered. _Shit,_ he thought, _hasn't he said that before?_

"I said _that,"_ Leonard began again, gesturing to the door, "was not nothing."

The red head scrambled to find a liable excuse. "O-oh!" he said, and tried to laugh. He hated how it turned into a strangled, nervous sound. "_That_. Naw, Karlos, I just kinda spaced out for a moment and got a fright 'cos yanno I didn't really expect you to open up the door so suddenly and hey can you let go of my hand it's all sweaty and shit from the humidity and holy cow you would _not_ believe how hot it is out there –"

"Hanna," Karlos cut him off, making Hanna flinch. He lifted up the red head's hand, "You're rambling, and shaking – you don't shake and only ramble when you're avoiding something. What happened?"

Hanna pulled his hand out of Karlos's grip, trying to step past the zombie coolly. "Me? Avoiding something? _Psh_, r-e-l-a-x Donatello, I'm _fine_. Why wouldn't I be? I'm perfectly healthy without any cuts or bruises or curses and I haven't had a run in with any kind of monsters or anything I mean I just came home from work so why..." he stopped himself, aware that Donatello hadn't moved or spoken. Hanna wished he was a better liar. "That is to say," he started again, trying very hard not to give himself away, "I'm fine."

Donatello didn't react for a moment, just stared down at Hanna. Hanna wanted very much to look away, hating how he had just lied to his partner. _But what else can I say?_ he thought, desperately. _That I think I'm being stalked by some guy that doesn't exist?_

Hanna inwardly sighed with relief when Donatello finally stepped away, though reluctantly. "If you're sure," he eventually said. Hanna's heart sunk somewhat with guilt.

He waved his partner off dismissively, focusing on the oven instead. He trotted up to it, bending over to press his nose into the warm glass. "So what's for dinner?" he asked, not wanting to continue the subject.

"Baked potatoes with white cheddar sauce," Donatello replied, gently peeling Hanna away from the glass before the smaller man started drooling on it. The side of his mouth twitched into a smile when Hanna 'gnee'd in delight. "Walmart was selling the sauce for half-price, so I bought a bottle."

"Oh man!" Hanna exclaimed, bouncing on his heels with childlike excitement. "Have I mentioned how awesome you are, Iaos? Because you're fucking awesome like whoa right now."

'Iaos' said nothing, but the creasing of his eyes was enough for Hanna to know that he appreciated the comment. The red head scurried over to the two-seater table in the middle of the kitchen, plopping down onto the chair.

"So how was work?" the zombie asked, opening the oven door and pulling out a tray of steaming, sauce-drenched potatoes. He had his back turned to Hanna, which meant he didn't see the red head's grin drop.

"Oh, well, it was super busy – like, shitloads of people," Hanna improvised, quickly forcing himself to grin again when Iaos turned around and started loading potatoes onto his plate. The red head stared at them to avoid looking uncomfortable. "'Cos of the sale and all, yanno."

Iaos seated himself opposite Hanna, crossing his arms as he watched Hanna shovel forkfuls of potato into his mouth. The red head pointed his fork at his partner, and said something between a mouthful of carbohydrates and cream sauce that Iaos assumed was 'how was your day?'

"Fine, as per usual," Iaos told him, and then remembered something. He pulled out a carefully folded piece of paper from his trouser pocket, and smoothed it out on the table. A name and an address were written on it in hurried, looping writing. "Oh, and a 'Mrs. Salleh' knocked on the door today. She says she has a case for us."

Hanna dropped his fork. He swallowed noisily. "Really?" he exclaimed, nervousness forgotten.

"Really."

"What was the issue?"

"Something about a demon being in her house, from what I gathered."

Hanna's eyes widened. "What – like she's being _attacked_ or something?"

Iaos shrugged. "I don't know, she just gave me her address, told me to sort out her demon problem and ran off, like she was afraid or something." The zombie paused, and looked at Hanna thoughtfully. "Do I look... frightening?"

Hanna stared at him, bemused. He wasn't used to his partner asking about his own appearance – most of the time Iaos didn't really care what he looked like. "Uh," Hanna started, genuinely unsure about how to answer such a question. "We-ell, Adam, the green skin and stitches and, yanno, glowy orangey eyes _is_ a bit out of the social norm – not too say that its, like, _scary_ or anything," he added, fearful of hurting his partner's feelings. "You're not 'frightening' to _me,_ I'm not sure about _other_ people because I'm, like, not a mind reader or anything though that _would _be fucking awesome – "

"Hanna," Adam said. Hanna stopped. The zombie quirked an eyebrow, "You're rambling again."

"Oh," the red head said, and looked down at his plate, embarrassed, then looked up again. "Sorry. But yeah – you're really not _that_ scary."

Adam wasn't convinced, but he didn't comment further on the matter. Instead he just regarded Hanna as the smaller man continued to attempt to talk and eat at the same time. The zombie didn't quite know how he managed to understand what it was that the red head was slurring.

"Demons are badass motherfuckers – you don't get 'em that often," Hanna was saying, one cheek bulging with half-chewed food. He cocked his head to the side at Adam, looking sceptical. "You sure she said 'demon', Watson?"

"She did, but she could have just been dramatising the situation," Watson replied. "It's a natural tendency when somebody is afraid of the unknown."

Hanna gagged, his throat suddenly tightening and lodging the forming bolus of potato and white cheddar in his wind pipe. He thumped his chest once, twice until he was able to swallow. Coughing, he held a hand in the air to stop Watson, who had stood up when Hanna started to choke. He didn't dare look at the zombie, because he knew the fear would be evident on his face. Just at the mention of 'the unknown' Hanna's heart had tripped itself, and he once again remembered to be wary of the shadows.

"Wrong hole," Hanna wheezed an explanation to Watson, once he calmed himself and his fear.

The zombie relaxed, sitting back down. He frowned at Hanna, "You shouldn't wolf your food down like that, Hanna. It can't be healthy for you."

Hanna rolled his eyes. "That's what Worth's said to me for over four years now, Amir," the red head pointed out. "And I'm still alive, right?"

Amir made a noncommittal noise. He briefly wondered how true that statement was.

"So when does she want us to go over and investigate?" Hanna asked, finishing off the last of the potatoes.

"As soon as possible," Amir replied, and then added firmly, "but _not_ now. You need to rest. We'll go in the morning – its Saturday so you aren't working."

"Yes, mom," Hanna sighed, but smiled at the zombie. He pushed his chair back and got up, stretching as a yawn bubbled in his mouth. Sleep sounded good.

As Amir took his plate and began cleaning up, the red head shuffled to the bathroom and quietly closed the door behind him. He unhooked his pyjamas from the handle and started to get changed. A part of him was eager for the next day to arrive so the case could be tackled, and another part of him was growing heavier as fatigue started weighing him down. He peeled off his Target shirt and attempted to fold it so that it didn't crease. As he reached for his pyjama shirt he paused, catching a movement in the mirror above the sink.

He stiffened, slowly looking up, though he saw nothing but his reflection. The staples holding together his ugly zigzag wound glinted in the harsh light of the lone light bulb above his head. His eyes darted to the shower. The plastic, fish-themed curtain swayed slightly, but that was only because it was in line with the draft coming in from under the door. And yet Hanna still caught something moving in his peripheral vision.

Alarm rising, Hanna surveyed the rest of the tiny bathroom through the mirror, not daring to move. He could feel his heart rate increasing, producing an anxiety that dug its nails into his stomach like a parasite. It, in turn, reminded Hanna of the ache in his chest, which was still there, gradually intensifying.

He listened, hoping to hear something - _anything_, even if it was Amir washing the dishes – and he felt fear stirring in his core when all he could hear was silence. His mind was yelling at him to run. He recognized this fear, but he refused to accept it.

_There's nothing here,_ he hissed at himself, _there's nothing here! You're just tired, you need to sleep, you need to stop freaking yourself out._

His breath caught in his throat as he heard the hinges of the door crack.

Logistical persuasion was quickly forgotten. He watched through the mirror as it began to open behind him, the wood moaning softly as the air was displaced. Hanna watched, numb, as fingers curled through the crack to grasp the door frame, slowly pushing it open.

Amir popped his head inside. "Are you alright?" he asked.

It took a lot for Hanna's knees to not give out. The red head felt the blood starting to circulate through his body again, his feet finally able to move. He breathed in, then out, and turned around to smile at his partner. "Fine," he replied. "Just... spaced out again."

Amir opened the door fully, looking at Hanna with concern. "Hanna, you've gone very pale."

Hanna glanced at the mirror and saw that he _had_ gone very pale, like he'd encountered a ghost. _Maybe I did,_ he thought, _but it was sure as fuck something a _lot _worse than just a ghost._

"Hanna?"

The red head looked back at Amir, who was now at his side, hands on his shoulders. "Hanna?" he said again. He looked down at the smaller man, who could see the genuine unease in those amber eyes.

"I'm just tired," Hanna said, and he honestly was. It felt like he'd been running for a long time, like his muscles had been worked to burning point. _Like in my dream,_ he though, aware that his thoughts were starting to cloud over with weariness. _But that's all it was – a dream._

"Then let's get you to bed," Amir said, and led Hanna out of the bathroom.

He helped Hanna down onto the mattress which acted as his bed, conscious of the smaller man's hands uncannily cold touch despite the heat of the apartment. _Maybe he's catching something,_ the zombie thought, and he felt his worry for the man amplify. _Or he's just been overworking himself. I certainly hope it's the latter._

"Thanks, Jefferson," Hanna mumbled, eyelids struggling to remain open. He felt Jefferson's cool fingers gently pry the glasses from his face, placing them onto the stacks of books at his side. The red head leaned back into the depths of the mattress, wanting badly to let sleep take him captive, but remembering that with sleep there came darkness.

_"But there's nothing... in the darkness,"_ he thought aloud, voice a whisper. The light of the room started to draw back as if it were inhaling.

"What?" he heard Jefferson say, and then he passed out.

...

_Hanna opened his eyes, and found himself staring through the window of his apartment. He was standing on a chair, gripping the pane. The familiar black mass of Jefferson was crouching next to him, holding onto the chair as a means of preventing Hanna from falling. For a moment Hanna considered the situation normal, and then he felt the pain._

_His entire chest was set on fire, adrenaline coursing through him in sharp, spasmodic bursts that sliced through his lungs like claws. He came to terms with the fact that he was, in actual fact, terrified, completely and utterly terrified, as he stared through the window and down to the streetlight-bathed road below._

_He knew something was behind him. He knew that it was staring right at the back of his head. He could feel the gaze burning into him, a gaze that induced his heart to thrash violently. Every vertebra felt like it was icing over with paralysis._

Don't look below you.

_The thought instinctively made his eyes snap downwards, to where Jefferson was below him, and his throat tightened._

_Jefferson _was _below him, arms outstretched as he held the chair. But that was all there was of the zombie. Just a pair of stiff arms ripped off at the elbow clutching the chair legs. The flesh was rotting, corroding into limp black slivers right in front of Hanna's eyes._

Don't look behind you.

_The red head's stomach twisted, vomit rocketing up his throat only to get stuck between the asphyxiating walls. He felt the air shifting behind him, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the reflection in the window. A single white face stared at him over his shoulder. Not moving. Just staring. Staring with no eyes._

_He wanted to look away, he wanted to look away and not believe what he was seeing. He wanted to tell himself that those _weren't _Mercutio's arms holding onto the chair, that the Slender Man _wasn't _standing directly behind him, that he _wasn't _about to shit his pants because he was so fucking scared –_

_And then he felt oddly... safe._

_He looked back up, meeting the Slender Man's eyeless stare. He could just make out the figure's slender frame, clothed in a simple suit, his hands at his sides, shrouded in the shadows of the apartment. He was standing about two metres behind Hanna, stature curious but hesitant. It was like he was trying to figure Hanna out, calculating his clockwork, waiting for the red head to make the first move._

_Hanna didn't want to make that move, but he didn't want to disappoint the Slender Man either. So he smiled, relaxed his grip on the window pane, forgot about the fear, forgot about Jefferson. A soft, childlike fascination threaded his thoughts down, one that Hanna recognized and welcomed for its bliss, its simplicity._

_The Slender Man slowly raised a hand. His fingers started to thin and coil, growing translucent as if they were congealing. His arm stretched forwards, elegantly and slowly like a ballet dancer, and with it slender tendrils of darkness followed. They sprouted from his side, black as night, silent as poison, careful in their pace but eager in their movements._

_Hanna's smile faltered for a split second when the tentacles silken, icy touch met the flesh of his right wrist. The Slender Man flickered in and out of vision, a dislodgment that confused and, unusually, made Hanna despair. But when he smiled again the man was back, and the tentacles curled around his skinny wrist securely._

_They slithered up his arm, up to the crux of his elbow, slow and elastic and tentative. Hanna continued to smile, watching as the Slender Man took a step closer. He could feel his thoughts growing more distant, the pain in his chest softening, a wonderful sensation of safety replacing the fear. He did not, however, notice that the tentacles around his arm were growing thicker, tighter, harder, more aggressive._

_They were pulling his arm from the window, raking at his pale flesh, trying to force his relaxed body to turn and face the Slender Man._

_The red head felt the cold air at his neck, saw the Slender Man's hand a few centimetres away from his neck. The fingers were fluid, rippling, shivering with anticipation, closer, _closer. _The tentacles were pulling harder, growing tighter, greedy with hunger. The Slender Man took another step forwards, another one, fingers stretching to take Hanna's neck in their gelatinous embrace._

Look behind you, Hanna.

_The thought unexpectedly snapped Hanna's mind in two, broke the paralysis that bound him in his place, combusted the oxygen in his lungs so that his entire body exploded with terror, adrenaline and magic._

_The red head's body instinctively jerked sideways, the scream that had buried itself in the tendons of his throat finally bursting free. The chair rocked and collapsed from underneath his feet, and he fell with it._

_He hit the ground, grunting, and twisted around to brace himself. But there was nobody to brace against, no Slender Man standing behind him. And yet his arm was hanging in the air above him, and he could_feel_the tentacles wrapped around his arms, taut and resisting._

_He watched, horrified, as his veins began to burst under the pressure, purple-black rings of bruises beginning to form where his flesh was being held before his very eyes. The magic shuddering through him was hot, bright, throwing his fight or flight instincts together only to be unable to put either one to use._

Why is this happening? _He thought desperately. _Why is this happening - ?

...

Once again, Hanna opened his eyes. His body lurched forwards, beating heart scraping against his ribs, as vomit rose up his gullet and into his mouth.

The red head flung the sheets off his sweating body and stumbled towards the bathroom, on the ground and hurled into the toilet. His chest stung with pain as his stomach juddered and heaved its contents upwards, his entire body shook with fading fear.

He clutched the toilet bowl, squeezing his eyes shut against the nausea. He couldn't think, his mind was too scrambled, but he managed to hope that Jefferson wasn't home to see him like this. At that thought, Hanna remembered the sight of the zombie's rotting arms, and he threw up again.

Finally, when his throat was raw and he couldn't throw up any more, the red head leaned back and rested against the bathtub. He forced himself to breathe deeply.

"Just a dream," he muttered breathlessly, attempting to console his shaken conscious. He smoothed his hair back, exhaling. "Just a dream. He isn't real."

He stared up at the cracked ceiling, gradually regaining his composure. _Fuck,_ he thought, _this can't keep happening to me. I need to stop overworking myself._

Getting up with a groan, he washed his mouth out and splashed some cold water on his sticky face. He peered out of the doorway to the digital alarm clock next to his bed, just making out the time to be 4am.

_Rutsky is still out,_ he realised, straightening to dry his face with a hand towel. Hanna was partly relieved and partly afraid that his partner wasn't there. _Afraid?_ He thought, and snorted aloud, shoving the towel back onto its hook. _You're _not _afraid of anything, Hanna. The Slender Man is just a figure of your imagination. You can take care of your own fears._

"Fear has a large shadow," Hanna whispered, pinching the bridge of his nose as he stumbled back to his bed, "but he himself is small."

* * *

**Please read and review, critique where necessary as you will help me develop my writing further.**

**No flames, thank you.**


	4. Chapter IV

**Chapter IV! There were a lot of formatting errors in this chapter, so please bear with me if you find any that I missed! Thanks.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter IV

Hanna didn't sleep for the remainder of the night, mostly because he didn't _want _to. The fear that came with the idea of returning to the nightmare was enough to make him bolt upright as his nerves short-circuited. Though it was the paranoia, for the most part, that stopped his exhausted mind from nodding off.

He left the bathroom light on so that the apartment wasn't swathed in darkness - _there's nothing _in _the darkness, idiot, _Hanna kept hissing to himself – as he curled himself into the recesses of his mattress. It was sweltering hot in the apartment, and Hanna was draped in sweat, but every time he threw the sheets off himself he would snatch them back up again after a few seconds of anticipating silence.

The red head vaguely remembered doing the same when he was child. It was a psychological thing, he had read. Children would huddle beneath their duvets, sheets or blankets when the slightest of creaks emanated from beneath their beds or wardrobes. They would clutch the fabric like they would to their mother's breast, attempting to draw comfort from their folds in hopes of hiding from the Bogeymen fabricated by over-active terrified imaginations or cruel parents.

Except Hanna actually had a liable excuse for being afraid back then – the Bogeyman had been very much real, and just as terrifying.

_But I'm not a kid anymore,_ he reminded himself, _and dad killed the Bogeyman. So why the fuck am I still so scared?_

He remembered the Slender Man.

"But he's not _real," _Hanna muttered, and fear then turned to anger when he found that he still couldn't believe himself.

The red head sighed and leaned his head against the wall. His eyelids started to droop, so he quickly straightened. Sunlight was starting to filter through the window above him, soft but too bright for his eyes to adjust to. Though the apartment was starting to lighten, there were still corners where the shadows remained thick and inky. Hanna found himself staring at those corners, dreading the thought of looking away and missing something leap out of him. Upon realising this, he made an effort to avert his eyes from any darkness and concentrate instead on the alarm clock next to him.

5:57am.

Only an hour and 57 minutes had passed since Hanna had woken up. _And yet it feels like I've been up for days,_ the red head noted, and he was unable to bite back the yawn that cracked his jaw. He rubbed his face, felt the creases beneath his eyes. _Might as well do something useful before Jacob gets back._

Getting up, Hanna straightened the sheets on the mattress and shuffled to the kitchenette. He proceeded to fill the kettle with water and put it on the gas stove, turning the dial to medium heat. He opened up a cupboard, trying not to notice the bareness of it, and had to stretch onto the tips of his toes to see what beverages where available. Hanna wanted coffee, but knew there was none – Jacob insisted that he should stay away from caffeine – so instead he grabbed a box of oolong tea and the pot of honey.

Knowing that it would be a while before the water would boil, Hanna wondered if he should try to clean the place up. He gazed tiredly around the room, finding that there wasn't much _to _clean up. Jacob was to thank for that.

Hanna felt a flicker of a smile rise to his face at the thought of the zombie, and then shuddered at the memory of his partner during his nightmare. Or what had been left of his partner. _I'm never gonna let that happen, _he told himself, now watching as the sunlight began to creep slowly towards his bare feet.

_Never ever._ He vaguely apprehended that he was beginning to lean sideways, his face slowly meeting the cool surface of the upper cupboard. _Never..._ he thought as his eyes struggled to remain open, _ever..._

...

Jacob carefully put the plastic bag of groceries down on the ground, fishing around his trenchcoat pocket for the keys to the apartment. He paused before unlocking the door, aware that the sound of a kettle starting to hiss was coming from inside.

_Hanna's awake?_ he thought, surprised. _This early?_

Slightly concerned, he unlocked the door, picked up the plastic bag and stepped inside. He found Hanna leaning against the kitchen counter, back turned to the door. The kettle was starting to squeal on the stove.

"Hanna?" Jacob said, and the red head started.

_"'M not looking behind me!" _he screeched, twisting around so violently that several vertebra snapped. He stared at Jacob, chest heaving, face pale. "Oh shit," he added, "I just did."

Jacob said nothing, for he couldn't think of anything appropriate to reply with.

For a moment the two just stared at each other, the apartment silent except for the screaming of the kettle. Then Jacob quietly closed the door and put the grocery bag onto the kitchen counter. He walked past Hanna to turn off the stove and placed the kettle onto an empty hotplate. Then he turned Hanna round, pulled off his glove and put his palm to the red head's forehead.

Hanna, thankful for the cool touch but confused by the action, swallowed and stared up at his partner questioningly.

Jacob said nothing. The only suggestion of thought was the slightest furrowing of his eyebrows, as if he were puzzled by something. The zombie grunted softly, and withdrew his hand. Hanna nearly tried to pull it back, wanting the cold against his sticky skin.

"I can't tell if you have a fever or not – it's too warm in here," Jacob murmured, and turned to start unpacking the groceries. Hanna wrinkled his nose and followed.

"Why would I have a fever?" the red head asked, glancing down as a carton of milk and eggs were placed onto the countertop.

Jacob continued to unpack as he answered, "Why wouldn't you have one?"

Hanna blinked, bemused. "I'm sorry?"

"You've been acting quite sickly these few weeks," he replied, taking the groceries and opening up the fridge. He carefully organised the items next to the few others, noting that he should check the thermostat soon to make sure the food didn't spoil. "Especially last night."

Hanna's throat tightened at the memory, and he fiddled with the plastic bag. "I-I was just tired, Iglesias," he lied, trying to hide his face as he felt heat rush through it.

'Iglesias' stood up, closing the fridge door and taking the plastic bag. He started to carefully fold it into a square. "Perhaps you've been working too much, Hanna," he told the smaller man, looking down at him as he fidgeted on the spot.

Hanna snorted and turned to the kettle, taking its worn handle in his hand, which he hoped Iglesias couldn't see was quivering. "I'm fine, bro," he reassured the zombie, giving him a side-ways smile. He took a clean mug from the drying rack next to the sink and peered at it, trying to judge through his poor vision where he should tip the kettle's spout into. He forgot to wear his glasses.

"Fine is not," Iglesias started, taking the kettle from Hanna before he got hot water all over the place or burnt himself, "good enough, Hanna – and we have enough money for now," he added when the red head started arguing that his job was the only source of income. "Lamont deposited the money for the runes yesterday, and the case today should allow us to pay off last month's rent. You _need _to cut yourself some slack, Hanna, all this work is starting to deteriorate your health," he gave Hanna a pleading, but meaningful, look.

Hanna sighed. He appreciated the worry Iglesias felt for him, and he hated the fact he had to lie to him. "Let's just see how much this case gives us," he eventually managed agree, through the thick build up of emotions in his throat. "Right now it's more important than a cold or whatever."

Iglesias met the red head's eyes, and saw the urgency in the electric blue irises. As well as an apprehension, one which the zombie could tell Hanna was trying to hide. _Odd, _he noted, but knew better than to question it.

He pursed his lips, not liking the idea of putting off the subject of Hanna's health in place of work, but, once again, knew that pressing the issue would only make the paranormal investigator more stubborn.

"Very well, then," he gave in, and he caught the respite flickering over Hanna's face. "Go get ready for the case, I'll make your tea in the meantime."

...

Mrs. Salleh lived in a cottage on a street that overlooked the ocean. It was situated between two other cottages, all three of them small and cleanly built. The sun, however, as it sluggishly crawled above the horizon, bathed them in a yellow that seemed sickly through the rising humidity.

Hanna checked the slip of paper with Mrs. Salleh's address on, looked back up at the middle house. He and Iglesias where standing in front of the fence that surrounded the house. They both noticed that strands of red string hung on the fence, adorned with small copper bells, knots of gold thread and jade beads. "Christ," Hanna remarked, touching one of the jade beads. "Either Mrs. Salleh's über suspicious or whatever it is that's terrorizing her must be pretty bad for her to go all out like this."

He pushed open the gate, the bells and beads on its hinges clacking and chiming, and started making his way up the stone pathway, Iglesias following behind. The zombie paused when something crunched beneath his shoe. He stepped back and frowned. A line of fine white powder was set in a groove that ran along the inside of the fence. A quick glance to the left and right confirmed that the powder was present around the entire plot of land. Iglesias bent over and pinched some of it.

_Salt,_ he observed, and straightened. _Hanna's probably right._

He followed Hanna towards the front of the house, stopping behind the red head at the front door. Iglesias raised an eyebrow at the sight of a pair of snarling, rather grotesquely stylized stone lions which sat on either side of the door. "They're _shishi_," Hanna explained. "They're supposed to protect a household from evil spirits."

"They aren't doing a very good job, then," Iglesias replied. Hanna laughed and pressed the doorbell.

After a few moments of waiting they heard the soft footsteps of somebody approaching the door. Hanna frowned when the sound of various locks and chains were pulled and turned out of place. The door opened a crack and a young Japanese woman peered through, her soft features lined with unease.

"Mrs. Salleh?" Hanna asked brightly, smiling despite her fear. "I'm Detective Cross, and this is my partner Kaje. Apparently you dropped by and, from the sounds of it, you need our - _ahem - _expertise in the paranormal field."

Mrs. Salleh opened the door a bit wider, expression turning wary. "You look awfully young to have such 'expertise', Mr. Cross," she said, her voice low.

Kaje glanced down and saw Hanna's fingers twitch, and noticed that his smile had grown taught. He quickly stepped in.

"Looks are quite deceptive in our circumstances, Mrs. Salleh," he told her, and he lifted his fedora somewhat so that she could get a better view of him. Mrs. Salleh's hand jumped to her mouth, eyebrows shooting up to replace her ware with surprise.

"Please," Kaje continued, lowering his fedora, "may we come in?"

Mrs. Salleh opened her mouth to speak, but the sincerity in Kaje's words made her stop. She looked from the zombie to Hanna and back again, obviously conflicted. Kaje could see that she wanted their help, but was hesitant to ask for it.

Eventually she sighed softly. "Yes, please," she managed to reply, and stepped back to open the door fully. "Leave your shoes at the door."

Once they discarded their shoes and stepped inside, Mrs. Salleh shut the door and quickly put the locks and chains back into place. Kaje noticed that her hands were shaking.

"Interesting atmosphere in here," Hanna murmured, looking around. Kaje grunted in agreement, taking off his fedora.

The inside of the house was brightly lit, with every electric lamp switched on and many flickering red and white candles placed along the walls. The red head looked up and noticed that there was an umbrella hooked onto the front door, and that its tip was actually a dagger. Hanna's brows knitted together, but he said nothing as Mrs. Salleh led them out of the main entrance and into a small sitting room.

"Please, sit," she told them, gesturing to the long couch against the wall. A Siamese cat was perched on the arm rest, watching them curiously. Mrs. Salleh bent down to pick it up and place it on the ground, tutting under breath. As the lace of her undershirt parted slightly, Hanna felt his heart jump. He could vaguely make out several large, oval-shaped rings of red and blue marks on her collarbones and breasts.

He looked away swiftly when she stood up and motioned towards the doorway opposite the one they just entered through. "I'll fetch some tea," she said, and hurried off.

Hanna flumped down onto the couch. Kaje noted that his forehead was already wrinkled with contemplation. The zombie knelt to stroke the cat, which had walked up to him and nuzzled his ankles affectionately. "Penny for your thoughts?" he murmured, looking up at his partner.

Hanna pouted, tapping his index fingers together. "There were marks on her chest," he replied, quietly so that Mrs. Salleh couldn't hear. At seeing Kaje raise an eyebrow he quickly added, "I only looked because they were abnormally formed!"

Kaje paused in stroking the cat, which nudged his gloved hand. "'Abnormally formed'?"

Hanna looked towards the other doorway, checking that Mrs. Salleh wasn't close, then leaned in to whisper, "As in they looked like something with big-ass sharp teeth tried to take a chunk out of her."

"A vampire, perhaps?"

The red head shook his head. "No, there were no puncture holes," he replied. "The marks were more like human teeth, except sharper. Kind of like she was attacked by a hungry zo –" He cut himself off, realising who he was talking to.

Kaje showed no reaction. "Zombie?" he finished, straightening to seat himself next to the red head.

Hanna faltered, "Well -"

"It's not a zombie," Mrs. Salleh interrupted, making Hanna jump. Walking towards them, she placed a tea set on a tray down onto the coffee table and sat herself down in the armchair opposite them. She folded her hands tightly in her lap and withdrew a shaky breath. "It's... my ex-husband."

Hanna looked surprised. "Your husband?"

_"Ex_-husband, Mr. Cross," Mrs. Salleh corrected sharply, then winced. "But yes, he's why I need your... assistance."

"What exactly has your _ex-husband _been doing to you, Mrs. Salleh?" Kaje asked gently.

Mrs. Salleh pursed her lips, leaning forwards to start pouring tea into the three small bone china cups. "Are you familiar with Yōkai?" she asked.

"Preternatural creatures – from Japanese folklore," Hanna answered instantly. He narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

Mrs. Salleh handed Kaje and Hanna a cup of tea each, taking one for herself and lifting it to her mouth. Kaje cupped it in his hands, not drinking but enjoying the warmth and scent of chamomile.

"Then you know of the _rokurokubi?" _Mrs. Salleh finished, eyes darting up from her cup to look at Hanna.

Hanna stopped himself taking a sip of tea before he choked. He stared at Mrs. Salleh with wide eyes. "You're ex-husband is..." he started, then stopped, put down his cup and continued. He held his hands out in the air, "Wait a sec - are you absolutely sure of this?"

"He's attacked me, Mr. Cross," Mrs. Salleh said firmly, her voice lilting as she spoke. She cleared her throat, putting down her cup and not meeting their eyes. She looked strained as she spoke again, her voice softer. "He's been attacking me for a while now."

"I'm sorry, but what is this... thing?" Kaje asked, perplexed.

_"Rokurokubi _are humans by day," Mrs. Salleh told him, face grave, "but gain the ability to stretch their necks to abnormal lengths at night while their body remains in one place." She raised a hand to her own neck, as if feeling for stretches on the flesh. "Some are tricksters, others are murderers. Some frighten other mortals at night but have no memory of doing so in the morning, while some kill other mortals because karma has made them into blood-thirsty monsters for breaking some law of Buddhism."

"Your ex-husband," Hanna said, choosing his words carefully for fear of upsetting her, "I'm guessing is the latter?"

Mrs. Salleh's hand fell to her chest, covering the few bite marks that were visible. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, her bottom lip trembling. Hanna shared a concerned glance with Kaje.

When Mrs. Salleh spoke again there were tears running down her face, and her voice was hoarse with sobs. _"He's a good man, he's such a good man,"_ she whispered, shaking her head. _"He didn't mean t-to... he didn't -" _She sobbed, cutting herself off.

Hanna bent forwards and gently put his hand atop hers, giving it a quick but comforting squeeze. "Mrs. Salleh, we're here to help," he said softly. "I know this is hard, and I believe that your husband is good. But can you give us any more information?"

Mrs. Salleh looked away, blinking back the tears. She took a kerchief from her skirt pocket, dabbing at her eyes. "I-I found out he was having an af-_affair_," she stuttered. She stopped herself, exhaling softly in order to calm herself. "It was g-going on for a while. F-for two years he lied to m-me – then a few months ago I c-caught him with that – that _whore," _Hanna flinched at the venom with which she spat the word out. Mrs. Salleh's expression faded from one of anger to one of apology and sorrow, "But he lo-loves me, and he was always g-good to me."

"Did he deal in any kind of magic?" the red head asked, clasping his hands together.

Mrs. Salleh started to shake her head but then paused, as if she remembered something. "Th-there was one night when he went missing," she began, brows furrowing with thought. "He went for a w-walk and came back with b-bruises," she drew her finger in curling lines around her wrists, "all over his arms – like somebody had him tied up."

Hanna felt his stomach drop somewhere at his ankles. He attempted to ignore the bile that started to bubble at the back of his throat.

Kaje noticed that the red head slowly started to pull the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands. He also noticed that Hanna had gone unexpectedly pale.

"A-and what happened after that?" the smaller man asked. Hanna could feel Kaje's eyes on him.

Mrs. Salleh lifted her hands up listlessly. "He... changed," she said, swallowing as she said the word. "H-he started getting angry and paranoid and he just kept on telling me that I c-cursed him. Eventually I made him leave, because I th-thought we just needed space, but he kept coming back. I've w-woken up at night with his face above mine, and his body at the foot of my bed, and every time he comes back he starts getting more violent and more... _desperate."_

Kaje blinked, mildly deterred by the image. "And when did he start dealing in magic?" he asked, going back to Hanna's original question.

She took a gulp of tea before replying, clasping the cup in her slender but tremulous fingers. "Before I made him leave," she said, her voice gradually losing its tremble, "he started going out, and coming back with bags of... animals bones and scraps of paper with symbols on it and whatnot –"

"What did the symbols look like?" Hanna interrupted.

Mrs. Salleh shrugged, "I can't remember, but a lot of it was in Japanese," she replied. "He would lock himself up in the bathroom and start chanting, and whenever I tried to talk to him he would keep yelling 'Revenge!' and 'I won't look behind me!'. I-I didn't know what to do, so that's when I made him leave."

Hanna wanted very much to look behind him, but he resisted the urge. "So he wanted revenge on _you _or...?"

"He certainly made it seem that way – probably because I caught him."

Hanna made a thoughtful noise, pausing to process the information. Kaje spoke instead, turning to face Mrs. Salleh, "Is it possible to turn yourself into a... _rokurokubi, _was it?"

"I..." she began, clearly taken aback by the idea. "I don't know. I'm not sure how all of this 'magic' stuff works, to be honest."

"That could be the case," Hanna put in, straightening. "Your ex-hubbie could have come across somebo-something," he righted himself, heart jumping, "that sparked his desire to get revenge on you. Maybe something, I dunno, _really bad _happened to him that changed his mindset. Made him go psycho, yanno. So now he believes that he needs to get revenge on you in order for ruining his affair, and by doing so he's successfully managed to tempt karma and turn himself into a monster."

Mrs. Salleh gawped at him, "That sounds..."

"Unrealistic?" Hanna suggested. "Terrifying? Yeah, magic is like that. This kind of stuff happens all the time, believe it or not. But you get used to it, eventually."

"Do you think your ex will make an appearance tonight?" Kaje asked, returning back the point.

"He's been here every night so far, I doubt tonight will be different."

"Then we'll be here at around six, just before nightfall," Hanna concluded, looking determined. He stared to stand but Mrs. Salleh grabbed his wrist, suddenly looking petrified.

"You know how to... change him? Stop him?" she asked, almost begged.

Hanna hesitated for a heartbeat before replying. "I'm... pretty confident I know how to deal with him," he told her. It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth, either. "For now I need you to stay inside and light as many candles as possible – keep them alight, don't let any burn out. We'll be here as soon as possible, and I promise that we'll sort out this problem."

Mrs. Salleh slowly let go of his wrist, sitting back with a long, weary sigh. "Very well," she said slowly, and stood up to lead them back to the main entrance. Once at the door she began to undo the locks with a morose, but slightly relieved, expression. "I just hope that you're successful in bring him back to normal. I love him too much to lose him to something as... _stupid _as magic."

Hanna didn't reply, he just smiled at her as she continued prying at the locks. Kaje caught his eye, and the red head mouthed the words, _The only way to save him is to kill him._

* * *

**Please read and review, critique where necessary as you will help me develop my writing further.**

**No flames, thank you.**


	5. Chapter V

**Chapter V! All descriptions and actions I have written of the _rokurokubi _are mostly based off my own interpretation. If you would like to read more on the subject, Wikipedia has a fair amount of information on it.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter V

"Are you quite certain that we have to kill him?" the newly named 'Judas' asked, watching as Hanna rifled through a stack of rune-covered papers.

Hanna sighed from where he crouched on the floor, and gave his partner a helpless look. "We've been researching the hell out of this case, bro," he reminded his partner. "I want to say no, but so far the only plausible way of 'changing' Mrs. Salleh's ex is to kill him. The books," he pointed at the pile of open textbooks and encyclopaedias they'd picked up from the library, "have sorta suggested at the same thing."

Judas drummed his fingers on the countertop he leaned against. "You still don't sound very convinced."

_"Well," _Hanna answered, laughing grimly, "it's not very often that I have to kill somebody, yanno."

The zombie was mildly alarmed at his sudden temptation to ask if Hanna _had _killed anybody. He quickly stifled the urge with another question, "Then how do you propose we go about killing him?"

"I think decapitation," Hanna replied, standing up and stretching his stiff limbs.

"You _think_?"

"It seems logical," the red head said, brows creasing. "_Rokurokubi _rely on the ability to stretch their necks to do their dirty work, so by severing the head from the neck it should stop their ability altogether." He emphasises this by running his finger across his neck, following with a squelching noise.

"I suppose."

"You _suppose?"_

Judas felt the edges of his mouth twitch upwards with amusement. He ignored Hanna's grin and nodded at the papers the red head had picked out from the pile. "What are the runes for?"

"Precautions," Hanna answered, shrugging and shuffling through them. "In case things go wrong – which they probably will, knowing us."

The zombie grunted in agreement. He knew the truth behind that all too well. "So explain the entire plan to me, please," he asked.

"We go back to Mrs. Salleh's place at six," Hanna started, folding up the pieces of paper and putting them into his trouser pocket, "we prepare a pentagram and then we wait for the show to start."

"And if the _rokurokubi _doesn't make an appearance?"

The red head shrugged, "I'm sure he'll be there," he answered. He glanced over at the alarm clock. "It's nearly six, we should get going."

Once Hanna had grabbed his sharpie and Judas his trenchcoat and fedora, the two exited the apartment building and started walking down the street. Orange-grey clouds had spread along the sky, though the weather forecast hadn't promised rain, and the humidity still clung as thick as ever to the air.

Judas pointed towards the forest across the road, which they were nearing. Hanna felt his stomach lurch. "It'll be quicker," his partner began, "to go through the fore –"

_"Hey what's over there?" _Hanna stammered, pretending to point at something down the adjoining street and then making a mad dash towards it.

"Hanna!" he heard Judas yell after him, and then heard the zombie running after him.

_Fuck,_ Hanna thought as he ran, _now I'm _really _being ridiculous about this stupid Slender Man thing._

He stopped when he was nearly at the end of the block, his face hot and heart tripping over itself in his chest. He waited, bent over as he got his breath back, until Judas caught up to him and looked around in confusion.

"I don't see anything," the zombie said. Hanna cursed himself under his breath.

"Sorry," he panted, attempting to give his partner a sheepish smile. He was glad that his face was already red, that way the uncomfortable heat of lying wasn't visible. "I thought I saw something."

"Evidently," Judas remarked, and an expression of mild annoyance flickered over his face. He didn't quite believe Hanna, but didn't want to speak out about it just yet. "Must you always run off like that?" he asked instead, adjusting his tie.

Hanna rolled his eyes as he straightened, "You're getting more and more like Worth every day, yanno that, Dmitri?"

"Except you actually listen to me," Dmitri pointed out. He fell into step next to Hanna as they began walking again, the red head inwardly relieved to be getting further away from the forest. The zombie shot his the red head a sidelong look, "Well, you listen to me majority of the time."

...

Hanna knocked on Mrs. Salleh's door for the second time that day. He looked over his shoulder to where the sun rays were gradually slumping below the horizon, the dark orange turning to azure in a slow dance of colours. Hanna narrowed his eyes as he studied the street, trying to pinpoint if there were any suspicious cars or people hanging about. There was, somewhat to his disappointment, no such things to be seen.

He looked back to the door at the sound of locks being withdrawn, and both he and Dmitri were greeted by a very anxious looking Mrs. Salleh. "Hurry inside!" she whispered, ushering them inside urgently and slamming the locks back home seconds before Hanna managed to pull himself through the doorway.

Mrs. Salleh, once finished with the locks, withdrew a long breath and heaved it out again. She turned around to face them, sweeping back the loose strands of hair from her face. "Sorry about that," she apologised. "My nerves are a bit shot today, what with all this..." she waved her hands in the air, unable to find the word.

"It's okay, Mrs. Salleh, we understand," Hanna reassured her. He looked around, noting the immense amount of candles that were lit throughout the parts of the house he could see. They lined every shelf and every corner, burning with small but powerful flames. Hanna nodded in satisfaction, "No disturbances while we were gone, I take it?" he asked Mrs. Salleh.

She shook her head, "No-one. I stayed in the house the entire day."

"Good. Could we take a moment to discuss the plans for tonight?"

"Of course."

She led them back into the sitting room they had sat in before, sinking into the armchair with a kind of exhaustion that filled Hanna with pity. As Dmitri sat down so Mrs. Salleh's cat, the Siamese, sprang from its position on a bookcase and landed gracefully on his lap. Dmitri gave it a welcoming scratch beneath the chin.

"So," Hanna started, leaning forwards with a serious expression. "When d'you anticipate him to arrive?"

Mrs. Salleh glanced up to the clock on the side of the wall, brow creasing. "I'm not sure," she replied, and cleared her throat. "But definitely after the sun has set, when it's entirely dark. That's when he –" she cut herself off, her hand moving to her neck. Hanna understood, and remembered something.

"Not to be forward, Mrs. Salleh," he said, making sure to choose his words carefully, "but may I see the marks on your chest? It'll help us better understand the psychology behind your ex-husband's sudden, uh, change of heart," he added, quickly to avoid offending her. He gave her an apologetic smile.

Mrs. Salleh started, but then sighed when she understood what Hanna meant. She undid the first few buttons of her shirt, pulling the lapels and collar away to reveal the ugly bruises and marks on her chest and collarbones. Hanna leaned forward and inspected the marks with narrowed eyes, noting with concern that there were a few teeth marks that looked substantially much more recent – and much more severe – then the others. They were deeper, for one thing, and had torn the flesh so that surrounding blood vessels had burst to form blossoms of red-purple blotches.

"Tell me, Mrs. Salleh," Hanna started, leaning back when satisfied that he'd studied the marks enough, "besides when he locked himself in the bathroom and was chanting and what have you – did he ever say things along the lines of 'don't look behind you' at any other points in time?" The very mentioning of the words made Hanna's throat tighten uncomfortably.

Mrs. Salleh looked surprised as she redid her buttons. "O-only once, I think," she replied. "Last night when I came home after contacting your partner here he yelled it at me when he arrived. Why?"

"Did you ever get the feeling you were being watched after he said that?" Hanna asked, ignoring the question and the imploring look he was getting from Dmitri.

"Well wouldn't _you _if you're ex-husband attacked you every night?"

"I mean have you gotten the feeling that you're being watched by something _other _than your husband?"

"What in the world are you implying, Mr. Cross?" Mrs. Salleh demanded, obviously growing panicky.

Hanna raised a hand to calm her, trying not to grow flustered himself. "I'm just trying to figure out what may have happened to your ex-husband, Mrs. Salleh," he told her, quietly but firmly. Mrs. Salleh opened her mouth to speak but Hanna beat her to it, "Mrs. Salleh, did your ex attack you last night more violently than he has before?"

Mrs. Salleh's confused expression dropped to one of shock, and her hand jumped to her chest again. "Is it that obvious?" she asked, softly.

"It's... pretty noticeable, yeah," Hanna replied. "But I need you to answer my question – in detail, if you can," he looked up at the clock on the wall. "And quickly, it's not long now until the sun sets entirely."

This fact seemed to startle Mrs. Salleh, for the colour vanished from her lips and her atmosphere became altogether stiff and wary. "I-I didn't even manage to get through the front d-door before he attacked me," she told Hanna, voice starting to quake. "It was like he was f-furious that I went out of the house! I-I thought he was going to ki –"

The Siamese on Dmitri's lap abruptly flung itself from the couch, puffing up and snarling a mouthful of fangs at the passageway that led to the front door. Hanna and Dmitri shot to their feet, Hanna's hand instantly snatching up the sharpie from his hoodie pocket. There came the sound of the locks rattling, and the door handle being turned frantically.

"Michelle?" came the sudden muffled, accusatory demand of a male voice from outside the door. "Dammit Michelle you brought those investigators with you, didn't you?"

The colour drained from Mrs. Salleh's face. "Oh, no," she whispered.

"How does he know we're here?" Hanna murmured, taken aback. He uncapped the sharpie and started drawing a rune on his palm.

"I-I think I let it slip when he attacked me last night," Mrs. Salleh whispered in reply, eyes starting to tear up with panic dread "I-I'm not sure, I can't remember!"

Hanna pursed his lips, but had no time for anger. "Mrs. Salleh I need you to get somewhere safe," he told her, giving her a resolute nod. "We'll handle things from here."

Mrs. Salleh ran out the room, footsteps dull thuds against the wooden floors. From what it sounded like she was running up a flight of stairs. _Safe,_ Hanna thought. _For now, at least._

"Aaron," he addressed his partner, who had taken off his fedora and trenchcoat. "Go and find a big-ass knife from the kitchen and then meet me in the entrance hall."

Swiftly Aaron was in the kitchen, rifling through drawers in search of a large and sharp enough knife. A glint of silver caught his eye and he looked up to a rack above the gas stove where knives were suspended. He could hear Mr. Salleh pounding against the door, his voice growing louder and more aggressive as he demanded to be let inside. The sound of cracking wood made Aaron pounce at the closest, largest knife – probably one best suited for carving – and he ran back through the sitting room into the entrance hallway. Hanna was already there on the ground, chanting under his breath as he began to draw a pentagram in the middle of the room directly in front of the door.

Aaron's head shot up to look at the door when another thump hit it, this time cracking the wood squarely in the middle. Hanna continued to chant, beads of sweat beginning to form on his forehead. "He's going to get through at any minute now" the zombie warned, watching as the crack grew larger and larger the more violent and forceful Mr. Salleh's pounding grew.

"Let me in my fucking house, Michelle!" Mr. Salleh's voice roared through the crack, momentarily revealing his square, grimacing face._"Michelle!"_

Aaron felt the slightest bit of fear spark inside him when he saw Mr. Salleh retreat from the door, and before he could do so much as caution Hanna the man's bullish form cleaved right through the door and very nearly tossed it off its hinges.

Hanna cursed and fell backwards, shielding his eyes as splinters of wood flew through the air and rained down on him. "Hanna!" he heard Aaron yell out, and felt his partner's hands grasping his arms and pulling him up to his feet.

"Get back!" Hanna managed to hiss to his partner, trying to squint through his watering eyes and ignoring the shards of wood that were embedded into his hands. Aaron stepped away from Mr. Salleh's hulking figure at once, pulling Hanna with him and tightening his grip on the knife.

Mr. Salleh forced himself to his feet with a grunt, bloody knuckles staining the ground. He spotted Hanna and Aaron and started towards them, only to be stopped when he collided into an invisible force. "The hell –!" he started, bewildered. Then he snarled at Hanna and Aaron, "Give me Michelle!"

"She's not here, Mr. Salleh," Hanna told him sharply, raising his fist and feeling the magic crackle and grow between his fingers. He gestured to the pentagram that Mr. Salleh was now standing in, "Don't move a muscle – try anything sudden and those runes will kill you faster than you can say 'oh fuck'."

Mr. Salleh looked down at the pentagram, looked up to Hanna, looked outside at the darkening sky. The red head caught his at the sky, and he felt his confidence slump a little. The ghost of a gruesomely handsome smile passed over Mr. Salleh's face as he turned to them again, then it bent back into an ugly scowl. "Give me Michelle," he said quietly, "and maybe I won't rip your face off."

"Threats won't do you any good, bro," Hanna told him. "And did I not just say _she isn't here?"_

"Then who's that on the stairway?"

Hanna spun around, forgetting all the confidence he had. He managed to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Salleh's terrified shape diving behind the wall at the top of the staircase, before he heard the sickening snapping of vertebra and stretching of flesh. Quite suddenly Aaron was driven into Hanna's back and they both went sprawling to the ground. Hanna hit the floor with a cry, pain scouring through his arm as his elbow cracked. Aaron fell next to him, grunting.

_What the fuck just happened?_ Hanna thought in bafflement, his vision swaying. _How did he get past the symbols?_

Then he saw the sharpie ink on the tip of his left shoe. His stomach dropped and he looked to the pentagram – the outermost line was smeared, so the seal was broken and the pentagram was now almost completely useless. _Shit, I must have broken it when tall, dark and ugly stopped the show, _Hanna realised.

He looked up and met the sight of Mr. Salleh's neck coiling and stretching away from his shoulders and his head starting to snake towards him. His body, however, remained frozen in position in the centre of the pentagram, bound by the little power it still contained.

With a screech that snuffed out several candles, Mr. Salleh's face seemed to crack and splinter like shattered bone china, the flesh peeling away in bloody, soft clumps to reveal a disfigured face made of ivory bone – one so sickening and so demonic Hanna nearly shat himself. It was like Pennywise all over again.

"Aaron – _get him with the knife!" _Hanna whispered, and then yelped when Mr. Salleh's head lunged at him.

The gnashing of teeth against teeth uncomfortably close to the red head's ear was enough to spark the adrenaline in Hanna's body. It surged through him and helped him jump to his feet, sharpie already uncapped and renewing the previous symbol, which was stained from sweat. Hanna swept his hand out towards Mr. Salleh's head, a fist of energy following and smashing into the man's cheek.

As Mr. Salleh was dazed and howling with fury, Aaron sprang forwards, knife ready. He slashed at Mr. Salleh but the man was too fast. Mr. Salleh's neck curled back into itself, his head bobbing in the air as his jaws split to unleash another ghastly screech.

Then he made for the zombie, the veins beneath the skin of his neck bulging as it was stretched. Aaron twisted away sharply, letting out the slightest groan of pain when Mr. Salleh's teeth caught the tip of his shoulder and ripped through.

"Martin!" Hanna hissed to his partner. "Keep him distracted while I bind the pentagram!"

Martin nodded and delivered an upper cut to Mr. Salleh's jaw, knocking his teeth together and crushing a few in the process. Mr. Salleh spluttered, blood dripping from his mouth and onto the ground. Martin started to go for another jab, only to have to try and jump out of the way when Mr. Salleh lunged at him again – angrier and faster.

Hanna was worried. He had never dealt with somebody – _something _- of this kind, and he was afraid that he'd underestimated the magnitude of the situation. Desperately he redrew the broken seal while chanting, touching up smudged symbols as fast as his fingers and mouth would allow him to. All the while he was aware of Martin struggling against Mr. Salleh. Hanna's heart skipped a beat every time he heard his partner emit some kind of wounded noise or when Mr. Salleh unleashed a fit of devilish shrieks.

The red head was on the last symbol when the sound of thread tearing and flesh squelching beneath teeth filled the room, followed by a cry of pain from Martin. Hanna felt his throat asphyxiate, and he looked up just in time to see his partner being thrown to the side with such force that some of the stitching in his partner's arm snapped.

Martin went skidding into the other room, remnants of stitching floating idly in the air – momentarily creating a picturesque miasma – while Mr. Salleh spat green flesh from his mouth carelessly. The knife fell from Martin's sagging fingers and clattered next to Hanna.

Hanna made to finish the last symbol, head pounding with fear and adrenaline, only to look up when the sound of Mr. Salleh's screeching unexpectedly grew much too close for comfort. Instinctively Hanna raised his hand with the sharpie for protection, and suddenly he was being hurled backwards into the wall and teeth were sinking into his palm.

He screamed in agony, white hot-pain juddering through him like static as he felt the teeth sink deeper and deeper through the muscle and bone. The sharpie was crushed in his fingers as he hit the wall, ink spurting from its ends and splattering against his and Mr. Salleh's faces. Hanna writhed, trying to wrench his hand from Mr. Salleh's jaw only to have more pain comb through his tendons. He could see Martin the corner of his eye, struggling towards him and yelling his name. Hanna spotted the knife, only a few centimetres away, and lunged for it with his other hand.

Clumsily he slashed at Mr. Salleh's face, just barely managing to scour a wound across the man's forehead. Mr. Salleh spat and let go of Hanna's hand, rearing back savagely. _"Hollow child!" _his voice, guttural and like that of bubbling water, snarled. And then it dropped to a soft growl, his face slowly lessening the distance between himself and Hanna. The red head pushed himself against the wall, warm blood spilling down his wrist, for a fraction of a second noticing that Mrs. Salleh was in the opposite room, staring at them in horror.

_"Don't,"_ Mr. Salleh's voice made him look back, _"look behind you."_

Hanna stared at him, gaping as liquid ice seeped through his muscles and into in his bones. _How –? _was all he could manage before Mr. Salleh's face warped with fury and thrust itself at Hanna's neck. The red head's body yowled to duck, his lungs threatening to burst with terror, but he could not – for the ice had solidified in his bones, and those words had brought back the fear of the shadows.

And then Mrs. Salleh was in front of him, holding the umbrella with the dagger point that had been hanging at the back of the door, and she brought it down onto the middle of her ex-husband's neck with inhumane accuracy.

Mr. Salleh's head fell at Hanna's feet with a sickening squash, shrieking and thrashing and spurting blood all over the place. His expression turned from fury to hatred to complete and utter panic all at once, the bloodshot eyes rolling in their sockets wildly. The flesh at his neck attempted to crawl back across his face, only to corrode and blacken the more it stretched. Mr. Salleh's body itself collapsed to the floor, twitching violently as blood washed out of his veins in waves and gushed across the floor.

Mrs. Salleh stepped forwards and stabbed the dagger end into the top of Mr. Salleh's head with a roar, stopping the shrieks and instantly slackening the terrible face. The body, in turn, stilled and the ocean of blood turned to a leaky tap. The silence that fell over the house was suddenly deafening, and nobody dared to move.

_Drip, drip, drip, _went the blood.

Hanna stared at the remains of Mr. Salleh, then slowly looked up to Mrs. Salleh, standing before him drenched in blood and holding the umbrella with white-knuckled hands. She gawped at the body of her ex-husband, the dawning realisation of what she just did growing on her ashen face.  
The umbrella fell from her grasp, which was now limp and shaking, and she stumbled backwards and hit the opposite wall. Her hand was over her mouth, eyes crumpled with tears and revulsion, as she let out a soft, despairing moan that stabbed at Hanna's heart.

_"N-no,"_ she keened, _"n-no!"_

"Don't panic, Mrs. Salleh," Hanna urged her, recognising the beginnings of a breakdown. He struggled to his feet, heart beating numbly in his chest. "Just brea –"

_"Kyle!"_ Mrs. Salleh wailed, mascara-stained tears rolling from her eyes as her entire body shook with sobs. _"K-Kyle!"_

"Mrs. Salleh –"

"G-go!" Mrs. Salleh interrupted, pointing at the door.

Hanna approached her, holding out his hands comfortingly. "Mrs. Salleh, _please, _let us help you –"

"T-take your money and _g-go!"_she screamed, ripping a wallet from the pocket of a hanging waistcoat and shoving it into Hanna's hand.

Hanna despaired, the consequences behind the situation starting to rise into his thoughts. When he tried to speak he felt Martin put a hand on his shoulder, and Hanna fell silent when his partner spoke.

_"We need to go _now, _Hanna," _the zombie whispered warningly, and dragged Hanna's reluctant form around Mrs. Salleh and out of the door.

Hanna stumbled outside, the heat sticking to him instantly, and he winced with guilt and fear as the door was slammed shut behind him. He could hear Mrs. Salleh wails and sobs and cries as he stumbled down the path, though his mind quickly forgot her when he heard the sound of approaching police sirens.

"Shit, we need to run," he told Martin, and they started to sprint – Martin clutching his arm, Hanna cradling his hand – back home. While he was able to ignore the throbbing of his hand, the red head was unable to ignore Mr. Salleh's words replying in his head. _Don't think about that now,_ he urged himself. _Focus on _not _getting arrested for murder._

"Great," he wheezed to Martin, "another case successfully fucked up."

"Go team," Martin replied grimly, and they vanished into the night.

* * *

**Please read and review, critique where necessary as you will help me develop my writing further.**

**No flames, thank you.**


	6. Chapter VI

**Chapter VI! Thank you for the support you guys!**

**Just a quick heads up - I have deleted and edited all chapters to this story, if you'd like to read more information on this please read the author's note in _Chapter I. _I have not changed the story in any way, just fixed up a few errors. Thank you for your patience and sorry for any confusion!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter VI

_Things went way too quickly,_ Hanna thought to himself, his stomach churning with anxiety as the sirens started getting louder. He pushed himself to run quicker, able to ignore the throbbing of his bloody hand from where Mr. Salleh had bitten him but unable to ignore the _rokurokubi's_ words replaying in his head. _'Don't look behind you,'_ Hanna recalled with an inward shudder. _I don't know how he knew, but he did, and that might just mean that I'm not just being paranoid about this whole Slender Man thing._

"Hanna, we need to run faster," Martin urged him, eyes aglow with worry. Hanna grunted in agreement and did his best to not think, forcing his legs to move faster.

He was aware of the blood dripping down his wrist, and through the wind howling through his ears he could hear it splattering softly against the hot asphalt. With a quick glance over a shoulder Hanna realised he was leaving a trail that the police could follow, and could probably use to identify him, so he quickly pulled the sleeve of his hoodie over the wound. He held the end closed with his fingers and prayed that rain would come soon to wash the blood away. The fabric of his hoodie slowly began to soak up the blood, warm and velvety against the red head's flesh.

They ran down the street through the shadows, dodging the streetlamps and rustling foliage in their wake. Hanna's chest was burning with exertion and fear, though the shock of all that had happened only moments ago that had settled like frost in his lungs had quickly thawed when the adrenaline started pumping. The sirens had grown even louder and continued to do so. Hanna could hear the faint crunching of tires on tar, and his stomach lurched.

_Crap they're driving this way! _he thought, panicked. As if becoming conscious of this, too, Martin's gloved hand suddenly closed around Hanna's arm, tugging the read head into a grassy alleyway between two houses close to the end of the street.

They crouched behind several heaped dustbins, pressing themselves into the wall of one of the houses. Hanna attempted to control his breathing, chest heaving, as they waited to see if or when the police would drive past. A few moments slid by, silent save for the wailing of sirens, and the thick heat of the night began to settle around Hanna's shoulders. He leaned his head against the wall, closing his eyes and forcing himself to calm down. His clothes were clinging to him with sweat, and he was lightheaded.

"Shit, Davan, we _really _screwed up this time," he eventually muttered breathlessly to his partner, who was sitting next to him, peering through the crack between two dustbins. Hanna loosened his grip on his hoodie sleeve and delicately started to draw the fabric from his hand, wincing at its tenderness. "It's gonna be all over the news, I bet you. Hopefully Mrs. Salleh can keep her mouth shut – or better yet she won't speak at all."

Davan turned to reply, started when he saw Hanna's bloody hand. "Hanna – you're hand." he said, eyes darting from the mutilated flesh to Hanna's uncomfortably pale face.

"Oh, yeah," Hanna replied, cracking a smile. "I guess Mr. Salleh had a serious case of the munchies back there." He laughed, feebly.

"Hanna, this is serious," Davan said, voice lowering in grim alarm. Reaching forwards he pulled back Hanna's sleeve to see the total extent of damage. Hanna made a pained noise. "Sorry," the zombie apologised, eyebrows creasing.

There was a bite mark near the middle of the red head's hand, so deep and savage that it very nearly made it right through to the palm, blood leaking out of every ruptured vein. Davan followed the fang-like teeth marks that gouged across the top of Hanna's hand, and he felt the alarm harden like a knot in his throat when the edges of the split flesh gradually blackened before his very eyes.

Hanna was watching it, too, and his smile had turned to one of wide-eyed horror. "O-oh," he stuttered, _"that _can't be very good."

"We need to get you to Worth's."

"But –"

"Hanna we've never dealt with a _rokurokubi_ before, we don't know what Mr. Salleh or his bite is – _was _– capable of," Davan cut the red head off. Hanna paled even further at the change of tense, all too well remembering the way Mrs. Salleh had executed her ex-husband. "In addition," Davan said, re-gaining Hanna's attention, "we'll be safe at Worth's, the police won't be able to find us."

Hanna, though he hated to admit it, knew that his partner was correct. He sighed and pulled his hand back into his sleeve, noticing that it was getting more painful to move it. Davan got to his feet with a grunt and offered a hand to Hanna, who accepted and let his partner pull him up. As planted his weight on the ground so his vision abruptly swayed, the light-headedness turning to a full-on head rush. A strained gurgle escaped his throat as he his knees buckled and his body crumpled sideways. Davan lunged forwards and just managed to catch him.

Struggling to stand, Hanna grasped Davan's arms tightly and attempted to blink away the stars before his eyes. It took some time for his thoughts to re-organise themselves, but eventually he regained his balance, exhaling loudly. "Damn," he hissed, wincing at the pain bursting in his hand. "Dunno where the hell that came from. Sorry, Jacques," he added to his partner, who still held onto him.

Jacques pursed his lips, Hanna unable to read the subtle expression that had formed on his face. The red head started to form a question when his partner gently moved his injured hand upwards, though instead all that came out was a spluttered "Whoa –!" as Jacques swiftly hoisted his partner into his arms. The sudden change in position resulted in pain scorching through his hand to his elbow and another wave of vertigo washing over him, making him gag.

"H-hey I can still walk, you know –" he started to remind the zombie.

"Hush," Jacques told him firmly, and Hanna did so, disheartened. A bead of hot sweat trickled down his temple, he swiped it away. Despite his appreciation for his partner's genuine care, Hanna felt guilty that he made Jacques worry so much. _It's like every time we have a case I always end up having to be carried, _he thought, recollecting their endeavour with Lee Falun's ghost in the theatre. He sighed.

Jacques had walked forwards and peered around the corner of the house to the right. He spotted the flashing red and blue lights of the police cars some distance up the street. He narrowed his eyes. _This is taking a chance, but..._

"Hold on," he murmured to Hanna, and before the smaller man could reply Jacques was running down the street, the world blurring around them.

The rush of streetlights and colours made Hanna feel nauseas, so he buried his face in Jacques's chest. A part of him comforted by the familiar smell of dust and yellowing textbook pages, another part troubled when he could also smell fresh blood – his blood, coming from his hand that he had curled beneath his chin to ease the pain. He remembered his wound and how it had bled when they were first running, and he hoped like hell that the police wouldn't see it on the asphalt. _I've been in jail once,_ he prompted himself, _I don't need to be in it again – especially for murder._

Jacques turned the street corner, all the while wary for the sounds of oncoming sirens, and was relieved that they had managed to escape without being seen. With a quick glance at a street sign to confirm where he was, he slipped into a steady walk towards Doc Worth's back-alley office. He would have carried on running but there were people who were in the area, though he made sure to still stick to the shadows.

As they walked so they passed shops awakening to the night, snippets of laughter and clinking of cutlery folded beneath the layers of humidity. The street-walkers and slick-talkers, in their dotted numbers, began to coagulate into existence from the gutters. Jacques did his best to avoid them, not wanting to draw any attention towards himself and Hanna. As it was they were getting a few curious glances from those who were around.

Hanna, now with his head resting on his partner's chest, started to feel a sour queasiness bubbling from his stomach to the back of his throat, his glands beginning to contract with the all-too familiar urge to vomit.

"I-Iago," he said after swallowing several times, "I-I think I'm gonna be sick."

Increasing his pace, Iago finally spotted the alley and made for it. Once in the dim space he jogged towards the nearly-invisible door that served as an entrance to the backside of the building, all the way at the end of the alley. Hanna was starting to sweat more profusely, the heat of the summer combining with his own gradually boiling blood to produce a skin-itching heat and throbbing that crawled from his hand up to his neck.

Iago could feel Hanna tensing and relaxing and tensing in his arms, a movement that was both difficult to keep up with and disquieting. He reached for the doorknob once at the door, hesitating when he noticed that bits of some unknown black-purple gunge speckled its exterior. _No time for revulsion,_ he told himself, and turned the knob. With three strides he was already across the corridor, opening the second door to the right labelled _Dr. Worth _on a rusted plaque.

"Worth," Iago called out, closing the door and noting that the doctor was not present at his paper and cigarette-butt strewn desk.

There was the sound of something metal being dropped onto metal. Hanna flinched in Iago's arms at the sound and groaned as the movement sparked a flash of pain through his arm.

_"Wot d'ya want?" _came Worth's harsh bark from the operating room, which was at the back of the cramped office.

"It's Hanna," Iago replied, ignoring the doctor's acidic tone. "He's badly hurt."

Hanna started to interject, "'M not that _hur –" _he slapped his hand to his mouth, eyes watering, the contents of his stomach unexpectedly rocketing up his gullet and into his mouth.

Iago instinctively pulled away, taken aback and wary of getting hurled upon. He was glad he didn't have a working stomach of his own, for he would surely be sickened, when he watched Hanna force himself to swallow the vomit back down. Hanna's colour drained from his face, though his neck and ears were burning a bright pink – like the first symptoms of a fever – and his body shuddered with disgust.

_"Ggghsweetjesus..." _he gushed, head lolling over Iago's arm. The zombie's worry for him intensified.

Worth's head finally appeared out of the doorway. He saw Hanna's limp and pale sweating form and gave out an unimpressed rumble. "Bring 'im in, then," he reluctantly told Iago, cigarette hanging from his bottom lip. Then his head withdrew back into the room.

The zombie hastily went inside, the prominent scent of formaldehyde and rubber washing over him, and deftly he placed Hanna onto a vacant operating table. Hanna swayed where he sat, so much so that Iago had to hold onto one of his shoulders to make sure he didn't fall over. The red head himself was trying very hard to avoid coming close to an unconscious state, partly attempting to draw up some kind of conclusion as to why he was suddenly so ill.

Worth sauntered over to them, snapping off a pair of rubber gloves. Iago noticed that they were covered in the same substance that had been on the doorknob. He looked past Worth to the other operating table, where he was only vaguely shocked to see half of a body – from the bottom of the ribcage down to the feet – strewn across its surface. Its gut had been opened was seeping with the mystery-gunk.

"Appendicitis," Worth explained, following Iago's line of sight. He cracked a smirk, "Along wi' some other – heh – _unfort'nate _anomalies."

Then he turned to Hanna and his crooked smirk vanished. "Christ," he muttered, looking Hanna up and down. "What woz i' this time?"

Hanna barely managed to open his mouth this time before he heaved forwards, vomit spewing from his lips and splattering onto the ground. While Iago had dodged to the side in surprise, Worth had only shifted slightly to evade getting splashed, his expression unchanged save for a momentary curl of his lip in disgust. Iago assumed that, being a 'doctor', he had seen and was used to it all.

Hanna hunched over, panting, vomit trickling down his chin to drip onto the floor. _"Ro... rokurokubi," _he finally managed to answer Worth, sweat clinging to his face. "H-he –" again he keeled over, more vomit rupturing from his throat. This time Worth was quick enough to lift up a bucket from beneath the table, and he caught the unmentionable discharge with a practiced ease.

When Hanna was done Worth pushed the bucket into the smaller man's hands and handed him a piece of tissue to wipe his mouth on. He swivelled around to Iago. "Ta avoid any further shit on my floor," he growled, _"you _can talk, Mr. No-Name-Brand."

Iago proceeded to explain the entire case, elaborating on how Mr. Salleh had bitten through Hanna's hand when in his _rokurokubi _form – and how he thought it could explain the red head's sudden sickness. Hearing this about Hanna's hand, he turned to the smaller man and pulled the bucket out of his weak fingers. "Off wi' the hoodie," he ordered Hanna, who was only too happy to oblige.

With some help from Iago Hanna managed to pull off his hoodie from his sweating body, the red head hissing in pain when he had to peel the fabric, which took some of the tender flesh with it, from his blood-soaked hand. Hanna's heart jump-started into a flurry when he saw that, though the bleeding had stopped to a slow ooze, the wound had blackened almost entirely.

Worth grasped Hanna's hand, examining it with narrowed eyes and a dark expression. He turned it over, making a surprised noise at the back of his throat when he saw that the palm had also been punctured. With a squeak of his heel against the tile floor, the doctor went to the occupied operating table and brought back a tray of surgical instruments. They glinted silver when they caught the light of the overhanging fluorescent bulbs.

"Lie down – an' don't squeal," Worth told Hanna, who just turned sallow at the sight of the bloody objects and slumped down. A momentary relief swept through him when his hot skin met the cold surface of the table, though the stinging heat soon returned.

"S-so what's... wrong with my hand?" Hanna struggled to ask while Worth rummaged through the instruments, closing his eyes against his fuzzy vision. _Fuck,_ he was thinking on the sidelines, _it feels like my muscles are on fire._

The doctor pulled out a splinter forceps, the tips red, and wiped it on the back of his hand. "Poisoned, I reckon," he replied.

Hanna's eyes shot open, sharing a startled look with Iago. The zombie furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "But it's written that _rokurokubi _have no such ability to poison their victims," he pointed out.

Worth shrugged, pulling off his coat at the same time. A snippet of scar-riddled skin was glimpsed before the doctor's undershirt arranged itself back into place. "I dunno, dead-man," he replied, placing his coat at the end of the table. "Never had much experience wi' _rokuro's_. But this 'ere," he took Hanna's hand and waved it at Iago, to which Hanna squeaked, "clearly says pois'nin'." Then he picked up the forceps and began to pry at the wound.

"Mr. Salleh," Hanna hissed through gritted teeth, thinking to himself _stop being such a pussy for christsakes_, "he dealt with... black magic – beforehand."

"There ya go, then," Worth concluded. He put his free hand down onto Hanna's lower arm and proceeded to rip out a sample of tissue.

_"FUCK –" _Hanna screeched. His body instinctively heaved upwards but with Worth's weight holding him down he spasmodically writhed in pain, eyes widening like electric-blue saucers. He cursed and groaned in a slur of incomprehensible sounds while his body set itself on fire again, skin tightening and sizzling.

Keeping his hand on Hanna's arm to stop him from getting to the wound, Worth held up the piece of tissue to the light and meticulously stared at its steadily blackening form. After maybe a minute and a half he finally remarked, "Well tha' ain't good."

"What is it?" Iago asked, panic stirring in his dead heart. He looked down at Hanna, who had somewhat succumbed to an agonised-stillness with eyes squeezed shut.

"'S like a weird comb'nation of toxins," Worth explained. He put the forceps down and placed his hand to Hanna's forehead, wrist and heart. He frowned. "Cicutoxin an' atropine, I'd say."

"English... please," Hanna moaned. He could hear his heart thumping in his head, the blackness behind his retinas starting to swirl into dim explosions of violets and yellows.

"Yer 'Mr. Sally' or wha'ever somehow managed ta acquire some kinda toxic plant – from th' local forest, I'd guess – and get i' into his system. Prob'ly in attempt ta make 'im more deadly in _rokuro _form."

Hanna felt his heart stop dead. _The forest._

"Is it fatal?" Iago asked, his hand unconsciously reaching for Hanna's uninjured one. He held onto it securely, a gesture equally consoling and distressing to Hanna.

Worth took a look at the wound, then at Hanna. Iago noticed that the doctor did not look at the red head's face, but at his chest. "Ta some, yeah," he eventually replied, expression carefully blank.

_You didn't answer my question,_ Iago wanted to say, knowing an understatement when he heard one. _But you probably won't answer it at all._

He looked down when Hanna squeezed his hand. "I'll be fine, Nathaniel," he reassured his partner, giving him a frail, pale-lipped smile.

Nathaniel only pursed his lips. He disliked that saying very much, especially coming from Hanna. It usually meant _I'm dying, but I don't want you to worry._ But he did worry, he always would worry – because this was Hanna. And if there was one thing he had learnt when Lee's ghost passed through him, other than _'Do not fuck with spirits'_ as remarked upon by Hanna, it was that Fate had crossed their paths for a reason – that reason being that Nathaniel was meant to protect Hanna. _His _Hanna.

Though the smaller man did not verbalise it much, the zombie knew he felt the same way. He became aware of the intensity of the mutual realisation of Fate that night when they had stood on the corner of First Street and Maine Avenue, when Hanna had talked to him of his 'random abandonment issues'. (Nathaniel still doubted they were random.) He understood that Hanna held onto their friendship very deeply, so much more deeply than the zombie could come to terms with, and it pained Hanna just as much when he lied to Nathaniel about his health.

"Nothin' a bit o' burdock an' medication won't fix up," Worth was saying, bringing Nathaniel back to the present. The doctor was holding a medical bag, from which he produced the familiar orange cylinder of unknown medication he coined 'classified'.

Nathaniel knew that was his cue to leave the room, which he did so after giving Hanna's hand a quick squeeze. He shut the door with a quiet _click _and leaned against the wall next to it, hands in his trenchcoat pockets. With a bit of persuasion he managed to slip any further contemplation from his mind, not wanting to over-think like he usually did, and instead settled to just listen. He felt guilty for eavesdropping, but knew it was the only way he would get answers to the questions he'd been harbouring for a while now.

He could hear Worth and Hanna talking, a gritty Australian accent against a weakened American one, and though they spoke low there was enough of a crack between the door frame and the door for Nathaniel to just make out what they were saying. He missed the beginnings of the conversation, but quickly caught on.

"... fucked yourself over, Hanna," Worth said.

"I don't want... to talk about this, Worth," Hanna replied, voice drained but determined. "Do you know – _ow! Easy on the tweezers, jeez! _– know if there's been... a concentration... in paranormal activity these past few days?"

Worth snorted. "Th' hell would I know?"

"You're practically paranormal... yourself."

"I'll take tha' as a compliment, smart ass. And no, 's actually been quiet. Unusually so."

There was a pause, filled by the sound of scissors snipping at something. "How quiet?" Hanna asked.

"Shit I dunno – haven't seen 'alf of my 'otherworldy' patients, no damn faeries gettin' inta my booze, no major fluct'ations in the second or third plane – wait, jes' _why_ are ya askin' me this? _Yer _the par'normal investigator 'ere."

Hanna paused again. "I've just been... a bit preoccupied –"

"Bullshit."

"N-no –"

"Hanna, I've known ya fer, what, nearly over ten years now? I can tell when yer lyin'. What's goin' on?"

_"Nothing. _I just –"

"Issit an issue wi' magic?"

"No, it's –"

"Havin' domestic problems wi' yer undead boyfriend?"

"No – what? _No! _God... it's just that –"

There came the loud sound of a hand smacking down onto the operating table. "Then _wot_, Hanna?"

_"Okay okay!"_

There was a clatter of something, like the surgical instruments being tossed together. This blocked out some of the conversation that followed, but not a lot. When Nathaniel could hear again Hanna's voice was low enough to make him lean towards the crack in the door to listen better.

_"I think there's something... after me,"_ Hanna's voice hissed, his normal pace of speech beginning to come back. Nathaniel eyes narrowed at the statement. _"I-I'm not sure if I'm just... hallucinating or shit but I seriously think that something is stalking me."_

"What – like yer land-lady?"

"... Well, yeah, actually, but that's because... I haven't paid for this month's rent _but that's beside the point – _it's something a lot worse."

_What could be worse than Mrs. Blaney? _Nathaniel thought, puzzled. He leaned in closer to the crack.

Worth broke out a half-hearted chortle. "Lemme guess – the Slender Man?"

Hanna made a choking noise. _"H-how did you know?" _the red head spluttered.

"... I was jes' kiddin', Hanna."

"O-oh."

"Ya do realise ol' Slendie's jes' a myth, right? Fabricated by that Surge bloke?"

Hanna said something, too soft for Nathaniel to make out. Worth replied, just as quietly. The conversation was hard to understand from there for some time. _Who's 'the Slender Man'? _Nathaniel wondered, unfamiliar with the name. He made a mental note to find some information on him.

He reverted back to listening when Worth's voice heightened in tone just loud enough to catch. "... You honestly b'lieve he's real?"

Hanna paused before answering, his voice wrought with a mixture of emotions Nathaniel had difficulty individualising. "I-I don't know, Worth. I honestly don't know anymore."

A silence fell in the room, pregnant with unspoken thought. Then there was the squeaking of Worth's footsteps, the opening of a cabinet, the rifling of boxes, the unmistakable sound of bottles of pills being produced. Worth's footsteps went back to Hanna. "Take two of these pink 'uns a day – one in the morn'in, one at night – and one of these white an' yellow ones at night."

"What are those?" Hanna sounded wary.

"Aladorm and Seroquel."

There came an indignant snort from Hanna. "Seroquel? I'm not _crazy_, Worth!"

"Ya certain 'bout that? 'Cos yer startin' to sound like it."

Hanna started to argue, then stopped, as if hearing the truth in the doctor's words. "I... ugh. I don't know," he said instead, voice frustrated. Nathaniel could tell that what he was talking about was bothering him.

Worth gave out a long sigh. "Maybe you've jes' been workin' too hard, Hanna," he said quietly. "Or it could just be the atropine in yer system tha's talkin' right now. Hallucinogenic. Lack o' sleep and proper nutrition can do tha' to a person, too – makes 'em start seein' things, believin' things. Essentially they go batshit."

"Worth, I'm not crazy."

"Actually ya are, but no' in the psych'logical sense. So, as yer doctor, I'm tellin' ya ta take these," the sound of the pills being pushed into reluctant hands, "don't fuck up yer hand, and for christsakes _take at least one day off_."

Then Worth's footsteps approached the door. Nathaniel quickly paced to the other side of the room, sitting down on a lone chair and pretending to read a motivational poster, slandered by Worth's chicken-scratch writing, on the wall. Hanna walked out, a half-hearted smile on his face greeting Nathaniel, walking a bit sluggishly. Worth followed suit, expression once again stoic.

Nathaniel got up, looking down at Hanna's hand now covered in thick white bandages. Worth tossed the zombie a plastic bag containing a handful of thistle-like roots. "Burdock root," he explained. "Good for drawin' out toxins. Make a big pot o' the stuff and make sure Hanna keeps drinkin', it should kill off most of the poison within two or three days. Keep 'im in bed – tape 'im to the mattress if need be."

_"Funny, _Worth."

"Yeah, yeah – ya can get lost now. I got a body back there that needs dumpin'."

Nathaniel nodded his thanks to the doctor and led the way out, holding the door for Hanna. They walked together down the alley, out into the street and back towards the apartment. Hanna was silent throughout, cradling his hand and his expression one of yawning thought. Nathaniel knew that he was thinking about this 'Slender Man' thing – _whatever that is, _he remarked – and, with a quick deliberation of thoughts, he supposed that it may be the answer to Hanna's odd behaviour during the past few days.

_That sounds fairly plausible. But is all of this just because he's been working too hard?_ Nathaniel wondered, glancing down at his partner with an uneasy look. _Or is it because of something a lot more dark? Knowing this line of work – it could be either._

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**Please read and review, critique where necessary as you'll help me develop my writing further!**

**No flames, thank you.**

**Once again, please remember that I'm editing and re-posting the chapters. Thank you for your patience. :)**


	7. Chapter VII

**Chapter VII! I'm terribly sorry that I kept everybody waiting for so long, but I'm afraid that I was unable to complete this chapter before I went on holiday for most of August. Hopefully I'll be able to anticipate my timing better and that the next chapter will be posted a little sooner. **

**Thanks once again for all the support!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter VII

The walk back to the apartment continued in silence. The atmosphere was stiff, Hanna too preoccupied with his thoughts. He still walked sluggishly, face pale, but looked somewhat better than before. He held his bandaged hand close to him, occasionally wincing when he brushed it against something.

As they walked Nathaniel started to formulate a chain of questions that he wanted to ask Hanna. Most of them were based off the information he had managed to catch while eavesdropping on his partner and Worth's conversation. _Why are you acting so strangely? Is it because of this 'Slender Man'? What is 'Slender Man'? Have you been lying to me this entire time?_

The last question made him glance at his partner. Hanna had lied to him on numerous occasions, so it wasn't unfamiliar to suspect as much, but that didn't mean it would stop the ball of worry and frustration from forming in the zombie's heart. Not to say that Hanna didn't trust Nathaniel – quite contrary, the taller man knew his partner trusted him very much – but Hanna wasn't always completely honest with him.

_Then again, perhaps I'm just overreacting,_ Nathaniel deliberated. _Worth could be right – maybe Hanna's just behaving the way he is because he's been working too hard._

He deemed this as most logical. A part of him still contemplated otherwise.

"Penny for your thoughts?" the zombie eventually asked, hoping to break the silence.

"Hm? Oh, not much," Hanna replied, shrugging. He sounded tired. "Just... random stuff."

"Care to elaborate on something 'random'?" Nathaniel watched Hanna's face as he asked the question, taking note of his brief flustered expression.

"Uhm," Hanna started, face quickly reverting to one of recollection. "Well, for one thing I, uh, wonder what burdock tastes like."

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. _You're still such a bad liar. _"I should imagine it to be quite chalk-like – in texture, mind you, not taste," he said, going along with the conversation regardless. He was then surprised at what he had said.

Hanna seemed to notice this, too, for he looked up at Nathaniel with interest. "Oh yeah? What gives you that idea?"

"I... don't know," the zombie said, and frankly he didn't. He pocketed his hands in his trenchcoat. "It just came to mind now."

"D'you think you maybe ate it back when you were alive?"

Nathaniel cocked his head to the side, then shrugged at the idea – he didn't really care if this was the case. "It could be a possibility," he said anyway, just to appease Hanna.

"Great!" the investigator exclaimed, his mood lightening considerably. Nathaniel suspected that it was because he didn't have to talk about what he was _really _thinking over. "Maybe when we make some tea or whatever out of it you can try some!" Hanna suggested excitedly, and then recalled who he was talking to. "Your taste buds are still kicking, right?"

Again, Nathaniel didn't know. "I'm not sure, I haven't really tried to drink or eat anything for the last decade or so."

Hanna laughed. "That sounds _so _weird, Byron."

Byron couldn't help but let a ghost of a smile pass his lips, which Hanna caught with a 'gnee' of delight. The zombie could almost picture his partner mentally adding another strike to the tally he kept of his and Conrad's smiles. It was amazing how such a trivial thing amused Hanna. _Maybe it's not so trivial in his mind,_ Byron mused as they walked, the atmosphere a little easier. _I suppose it's just one of those things that make's Hanna, well, Hanna._

When they eventually got into their apartment building and were walking towards the stairs, Hanna grew decidedly guarded. He hesitated before he followed his partner up the stairs, eyes flittering from one decrepit wall to each stair to the next. Byron followed his gaze and realised he was taking in the shadows, analyzing their presence as if expecting them to uncoil and lunge at him.

"Are you alright?" he asked, making the smaller man start.

"Y-yeah!" Hanna replied, a little too quickly. Byron felt him move closer to his side. "It's really dark in here, have you noticed?"

"It's always been like this," Byron reminded him, now puzzled. He stopped where he was. Hanna instantly did the same, like he was afraid to advance without the zombie. "Why the sudden unease? It never bothered you before."

The red head rubbed the back of his neck, teeth worrying at his bottom lip. "I-I guess I'm just a little spooked after the case," he offered, and as Byron started to argue that he was _very rarely_ spooked Hanna added, "I just… didn't expect to get Mr. Salleh _killed._"

Byron shut his mouth and held Hanna's troubled stare. The blue irises held an arrangement of emotions – fear, struggle, fatigue, pain. Seeing all of this sparked more than worry in Byron. He was beginning to be afraid for Hanna's mental as well as physical well-being, the potential deterioration of the red head's health rising dangerously close to the surface. _Maybe that's why he's acting so strangely, _Byron apprehended. He didn't like that concept.

"Hanna," he started, slowly. "Are you _sure _you're okay?" The question wasn't quite what he wanted to ask, but knew would have to suffice.

Hanna didn't answer at first, just continued to stare up at his partner. He recognised that the question was not complete, he could see the concern in Byron's eyes. And that frightened him. He could deal with anything – the death of a client, a malicious paranormal entity, a broken arm, even hair-loss – but he couldn't deal with dragging Byron into his not-quite-believable matter at hand.

"No," the red head eventually managed to say. He found the truth beginning to pool into his mouth, hot and choking, but he couldn't bring himself to let it pass his lips. "I'm… I guess _worried_," he said, which was partly true. "And tired. Really, _really _tired." He emphasised on the 'really', hoping that the zombie would drop the conversation at that.

_Well at least _that's _relatively truthful. _"Worried? About what just happened at the case?"

"W-well, yeah. I'm kinda worried that Mrs. Salleh will let the cat out of bag," he explained, and started floundering. "Then the police will go all a-wall and come to the apartment and arrest us and start questioning – and then they'll find out about _you_ and then _you're_ in trouble because you're supposed to be _dead_ but you're _not – "_

"Hanna."

The investigator fell silent, dropping his eyes to the floor. Byron inwardly sighed. Hanna was genuinely worried about him, that much was evident. He was touched, but couldn't let the red head's worry overrule his own strength. The zombie gently cupped Hanna's chin and lifted his face so that they were looking at each other."We'll be fine," he told his partner softly, but firmly, and let go. _That is, I hope we will be. _"Now – let's get you to bed."

Byron continued to ascend the stair with Hanna trailing reluctantly after him, the zombie even more anxious, and bemused, than before.

...

Byron took out a clean mug from the cupboard. He took the kettle off the stove, where he had left it for about five minutes to allow the burdock root to steep, and filled the mug close to the brim. The 'tea' was an odd brown-amber colour, and had a subtle earthy scent that was somewhat appealing.

Cracking open one of the bottles of pills that contained white and yellow capsules, he scooped one of them out and carefully put it on the kitchen counter. He did the same for one of the pink pills. Hanna had produced them earlier and had told Bryan that they were 'anti-anxiety and mild sleeping pills', unbeknownst to the fact that Byron knew that only half of that statement was true.

He assumed the pink pills were the Seroquel – _used for treating symptoms of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, _the zombie recalled – and he could understand why Hanna would lie about them. Nobody wanted to admit that they were going crazy.

_Although,_ Byron thought, _I hope dearly that Hanna_isn't_going crazy._

Mentally shaking off the thought, he walked over to Hanna, who was curled up on his bed. Byron held out the pills and mug to the red head. The latter accepted them and brought the tea to his face, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He gave Byron a sceptical look.

"I didn't poison it, if that's what you're thinking," Byron remarked dryly, settling himself into his usual spot next to Hanna's bed.

"I know _you_ didn't," Hanna replied. "I'm not so sure about _Worth_, though."

"Hanna – he's your doctor. Why would he poison you?"

Hanna made a face. "This is _Worth _we're talking about, bro. He's a twisted guy that gets off on making people suffer. D'you know what he's done to some of his patients?"

"I don't think I'd like to know, thanks. Just take your pills and drink your tea. It's not poisoned."

Hanna pouted, looking very much like a child being faced with a formidable plate of vegetables. Reluctantly he blew the steam from the surface, popped the pills into his mouth and took a small sip. He gagged almost instantly and Byron saved him from spilling all over by reclaiming the mug. Hanna flailed his hands a bit before finally forcing himself to swallow, shuddering against the flavour.

_"Sweet Jesus_," he hissed.

"It can't be that bad," Byron said, raising an eyebrow.

Hanna wiped his mouth and pointed to the mug with an accusing finger. "Bro, that shit is _nasty. _Taste it for yourself."

"I'd rather not –"

"Seriously – have some! Maybe you'll remember trying it when you were alive. God knows _why_, though…"

Not wanting to disappoint Hanna, Byron gave in. He half expected not to taste anything at all. _Is it even possible for taste buds to still function after ten years of rot?_ he wondered, swirling the tea about. _I suppose if I can still smell then I should be able to taste. _He took a sip – small enough just to taste and not swallow.

A slow heat crackled in his mouth. An arrangement of flavours were slothfully recognised on his tongue – earth, stale air, cold blood, bitter chalky tea – they were subtle, but he could taste them well enough. Hanna took the mug from his hands and watched him, eagerly.

Byron's mouth pulled into a slight frown at the rather disagreeable mixture of tastes – probably from the decade of earth and rot – and he furrowed his brows at the unexpected, but slight, recognition of the flavours. He couldn't place where he remembered them from, or which one he remembered the most. The burdock, however, was somewhat familiar.

"Well?" Hanna pressed, ogling the thoughtful-looking zombie.

"Well, we can now establish that my taste buds are 'still kicking' – essentially, it tastes absolutely terrible."

"I _told _you! But d'you remember anything? Anything at all?"

"Nothing, really. The burdock is a little familiar, if that helps."

"Good familiar or bad familiar?"

"What do you think?"

Hanna laughed. "Bad familiar, then."

Byron leaned back into the wall, picking up the book that sat close to him. It was a Stephen King novel, leant to him by Conrad. His mouth was still tingling from the heat, but the tastes had noticeably disappeared, as if it was an effort for them to be present. _Interesting._

With a nod at the mug he said to Hanna, "You still have to drink that."

The red head's smile fell into a look of dismay. "But –"

"No buts, Hanna."

"It tastes _bad –"_

"So finish it as quickly as possible – don't chug, you'll choke."

After another minute of whining and debating, Hanna finally did as told and managed to down the tea. It had grown lukewarm, which made the taste worse. He verbalised this quite loudly. Byron took the mug to the sink, gave it a quick rinse and then returned. Hanna had sunken into his moth-eaten sheets, still grimacing. His bandaged hand was outstretched on his pillow, a faint stain of red starting to show through the layers. _I should probably change that in the morning, _Byron thought, making a reminder.

"Today was such a fail, Crowley," Hanna muttered, rubbing his haggard face. His entire body was groaning with relief at being able to finally lay still.

Crowley started to say something positive. He realised, however, that there was very little to be positive about. Instead he just gave Hanna a sympathetic look and turned to the first page of his book.

Hanna leaned over to pick up the wallet sitting next to the mattress. It was the one that Mrs. Salleh had thrust into his hands when she forced them to leave her house. Hanna had already gone through it, relieved that it seemed to be just a spare that was filled with a few ten notes and some coins. It would have been disastrous if it contained her credit card or driver's license – granted, it was easy to get rid of such things, as Hanna had learnt through experience, but it didn't get rid of the guilt that came with the possession.

He quickly counted out the notes and coins – about eighty-seven dollars – and then sighed. "I really do hope Mrs. Salleh doesn't say anything."

"If she's smart she would run," Crowley said, turning the page. "It wouldn't take long for the police to figure out it was her. She seems the type to be able to take off and conveniently disappear."

Hanna considered this, and worried about the blood that had spilled onto the ground from his hand when they had run down the street.

"Don't think about what happened, Hanna," Crowley told him, as if reading his thoughts. He glanced at his partner. "What happened has happened, we can't change it. Just try to sleep, you need it."

"Yeah… you're right."

Taking off his glasses and placing them to the side, he untangled the sheets from his legs and buried his face into his pillow. The cool surface was a hospitable one against his hot skin. "G'nite, Jack," he said quietly, eyelids already flittering closed.

"Goodnight, Hanna," Jack said. He reached up and turned off the light.

...

_Hanna's right arm was burning._

_It was the kind of burn you felt when dry ice stuck to your skin. It made every pore pucker and tingle, the veins rising to the surface in attempt to melt off the adhesive, and then throbbing at the effort._

_With a stifled moan Hanna reached out to touch his arm, only to find that it was not at his side. Confused, he let the sleep escape from beneath his eyelids and found himself staring at the floor of his apartment._

_More importantly, he was staring at a rather familiar-looking pair of amputated arms that were also on the floor. They were holding onto an overturned stool. In their tense grasp, the fingers were rotting and peeling off the bone in blackening clumps. Hanna recognized those arms. They were Damien's arms – devoid, however, of Damien himself._

_Hanna swallowed, and felt the terror slowly bubbling in the pit of his stomach._This, _he thought, _is a little too memorable.

_Slowly he turned his head to look up, and his stomach lurched when he saw his arm hanging in the air above him. His heartbeat started to flood into his mind, fast and deafening, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness and the bruises on his arm became apparent. They marked his skin from the top of his wrist to the bottom of his elbow, falling in loops of purple-red burst blood vessels and punctured skin._

_He hesitated, then tried to tug his arm down. His breath hitched in mid-cry when pressure crushed down on his limb, tight and unrelenting. Something was holding him, something long and thin and glutinous – Hanna couldn't see it, but he could feel it. And the vague ache in his chest told him that that __something __was most certainly there, and it had no intention of leaving._

_He swallowed again, a hard task when your throat has swollen with fear. He closed his eyes, forced himself to breathe, to calm down. Surrounding him was silence. The all-too-familiar silence where even the shadows were too afraid to whisper. He tried to ignore this silence. He tried to fill it with thought, with light, but the only thought he managed was –_

Don't look above you.

_Hanna's eyes shot open. There was nothing. And then there was the Slender Man._

_Paralysis – sharp and instant – set into his bones. The ache in his chest turned to a heart-wrenching pain. His lungs filled with panicked magic and a cry forced itself up his throat, only to have it lodge in the folds of tissue. His mind screamed for him to run, but the only movement his body was able to produce was a brief twitching of fingers._

_He was stuck._

_Hanna's eyes were transfixed on the non-existent ones above him. He gaped up into that empty face – the one that was so alien, so petrifying, and yet so curiously comforting._

_The Slender Man was standing next to him, thick black tendrils surrounded his suited figure and Hanna's arm. But they weren't moving, and neither was the Slender Man. The tendrils hung in the air, mid-sway, the 'man' himself standing erect with his face glued to the red head's. He was waiting._

_Studying, calculating, withholding his inquisitiveness – the Slender Man watched. The red head could only stare, heart pounding hard against his ribs, pain in his chest desperate._

_Once again, Hanna found himself in position to make the first move. Although as to__what__that first move was, he didn't know. The Slender Man, Hanna realised, wanted to play a game much like chess. In this game, though, Hanna had very little chance of winning._

_Hanna didn't want to lose. But on the other hand – he sort of _did _want to lose._

_The cause for such torn perspectives was a kind of hesitant curiosity, gradually materialising from the back of his mind. Hanna had felt this curiosity before, child-like in its state, calming and thought-enveloping in its properties. It was a wonderful feeling, but a dangerous one. This curious part of him _wanted _to let the Slender Man approach him, it _wanted _that feeling of safety that the Slender Man gave him, and it most certainly _wanted _to lose._

No, no you don't, _the other part of Hanna urged. This thought was muffled, almost far away, unsuccessful in keeping its hold on sanity. _You don't want to lose to something that isn't real! _that part of him insisted. _He _isn't_ real! He _isn't_ real!

_But at that very moment the Slender Man was very much real, and Hanna really didn't mind losing._

_He smiled. The fear softened, welcoming the release of the pain in his chest. He watched as the Slender Man shivered back into motion, tentacles seemingly swaying in a slow waltz._

_The Slender Man took a few steps back, footfalls stirring no dust, and Hanna felt himself being gently pulled up by the tentacles around his suspended his arm. The Slender Man cocked his head slightly to the side, as if intrigued by Hanna's lack of weight, but straightened when Hanna was set down onto his feet._

_Hanna and the Slender Man were only a few feet apart now. The red head's head lolled backwards so that he could continue to smile up at the ethereal being. Vaguely, Hanna wondered if the Slender Man was smiling back in his own expressionless way._

_They continued to stare at each other for moments that seemed to float by. Hanna's thoughts sunk further and further into the fog in his mind, struggling to make themselves heard. A comfortable numbness started to spread from his feet to his head, heartbeat rendered to a slow lilting drum. This was nice, this felt good, this felt… safe._

_The Slender Man raised a hand, the air around the pale digits drying out with cold. Tentacles rose with the hand, curling and dispersing like smoke under water. The Slender Man moved his hand from side to side fluidly, moving the tentacles around him as if by invisible strings. Hanna watched, awe-struck and mesmerised, unable to feel the tugging of tentacles on his right arm. Hungry, aggressive tugging. They pulled him and Hanna took a deadened step forwards – closer to the Slender Man._

_Closer, closer the tentacles pulled him. Cold began to swathe Hanna's skin, smothering the protesting muscles with abstract control. The Slender Man's hand moved swifter, more erratic, flowing flesh turning to spidery electricity. Some of the tentacles reached out for Hanna's untouched left arm, ravenously seeking his weak fingers and tugging, tugging,_tugging _him forwards –_

_The apartment door creaked open and light flooded into the apartment, startling Hanna out of his trance. He shot a look at the door and recognised the silhouette of Benedict standing there, except he was holding grocery bags and wasn't moving. Hanna snapped his head back over his shoulder to where the zombie's arms had been clutching the chair, rotting on the spot – but they weren't there. The red head looked back up, and neither was the Slender Man._

...

"Hanna, what are you doing?"

Hanna opened his eyes, the vague lurch of terror churning in his stomach. He was sitting up, with his right arm raised in the air, and he was facing Benedict – who was standing in the doorway, holding bags of groceries. He stared at his partner, aware that his eyes were wide and his jaws were clenched. Sweat was dripping down his face. It was cold.

Light pooled into the apartment from outside the door, barely reaching the end of the mattress. It illuminated Benedict's features, showed that he was real, he was standing there with his arms still very much intact.

Lowering his arm, Hanna unclenched his jaws and let out a relieved but terrified breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. He sunk his head into his hands, and felt his body shake as the adrenaline left his system.

"Hanna?"

The red head didn't look up at his partner's worried tone. He could only think about the dream, could only struggle with the puzzle pieces formulating before him, attempting to understand just what the fuck was going on. _It was just like the dream before, and the dream before that,_ he realised grimly, the cold fog defrosting from his mind. _This whole time it's been a continuation of a... a _game. _A game where things just keep getting worse and worse! Maybe it's a mind-game, maybe it's a game of survival... I don't know which._

Hanna swallowed. His throat was very dry. _Whatever game it is – I'm not looking forwards to the end._

"Hanna!"

Breath shovelled itself back into the red head's lungs, and his thoughts snapped shut. Oxygen drew him back into reality, to where his partner was sitting before him and shaking his shoulders, to where there was no such thing as the Slender Man.

"Hanna, I'm not going to call your name again," Benedict was saying, voice low and concerned. "Now, what's wrong?"

_"Moth," _was the first thing that came out of Hanna's mouth.

Benedict stared at him blankly. "I'm sorry?"

Hanna ggritted his teeth, forcing saliva down his burning throat. "Th-there was a moth."

"And…?"

"And I tried t-to catch it," he stuttered. His eyes reluctantly met his partner's, heart thumping loudly. "It... freaked me out."

Benedict didn't react for a moment. He studied the red head's face, eyebrows raised in speculation. "So what you're saying," he started, "is that a _moth_caused you to look as if you've seen a ghost – or better yet, that one has passed through you. Am I correct?"

Hanna pursed his lips. "It was big," he added, in a small voice.

The zombie said nothing. He continued to stare at his partner, amber eyes regarding blue ones. It was obvious that Hanna was hiding something, this they both knew, and it didn't help Benedict's growing concern for him. _Why won't you tell me the truth? _he mentally asked Hanna, hands holding onto his shoulders tightly. As if hearing the question, Benedict caught the answer as it flashed through Hanna's eyes.

_Because I'm afraid._

Benedict blinked, taken aback, though he didn't show it. "Ah," he eventually murmured, and Hanna broke eye-contact.

Hesitantly releasing his hold on the smaller man's shoulders, Benedict got to his feet and turned away. The fist around his heart was now white-knuckled. He craned his neck slightly to the side, not quite looking at Hanna. "Get some sleep, Hanna," he told him, making sure to keep his voice steady - even though he knew it would have trembled. "We'll sort the… _moth _issue out in the morning."

"Th-thanks, Leonardo," Hanna replied, softly. Leonardo just grunted and walked to where he'd put down the grocery bags.

He lifted them up onto the kitchen counter, and looked back at Hanna. The red head had sunk into his sheets, hands curled under his chin. He let his eyes flicker down to Hanna's right arm.

_A 'moth',_ he thought, _can't do that to your arm._

Benedict pursed his lips and went back to unpacking the groceries.

* * *

**Please read and review, critique where necessary as you'll help me develop my writing further!**

**No flaming, thank you.**


	8. Chapter VIII

**Chapter VIII! ****And so complications unfold.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter VIII

Benedict stepped out of the apartment building and into the summer heat. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his unbuttoned trenchcoat and regarded the city before him – an average, quiet Sunday morning. The only noises were the familiar ones of stores awakening and squawks of gulls congregating on the rooftops. The zombie looked up to the somewhat overcast sky, hoping that the shower that had fallen perhaps half an hour ago would be the last for a while. The asphalt was still steaming from it.

The scene was pretty, in a humid kind of way.

Nodding to himself, Benedict donned his fedora and made his way down the street. A few minutes later and he was entering the local library, tipping his hat to the woman behind the information counter as he approached her.

"Morning, Mr. Tracey," the woman greeted him without looking up. She was petite, mid-thirties, and had sharp features. Benedict recalled her name being Sarah. "What will it be today?" she asked, without looking up at him. "Neil Gaiman? Terry Brooks?"

"Nothing of that sort today, thanks," Benedict replied politely. "I don't suppose you have anything on unexplained phenomena – possibly from this year back to, oh I don't know, 2006?" He chose the year at random.

The woman named Sarah paused. She glanced up at him, then swivelled in her chair to the computer at her side and started typing at a log of sorts. She didn't ask for a reason behind Benedict's interest, and she never did. Benedict deemed that she'd gotten used to his _eclectic _taste in books – or, rather, that by her seeing he was friends with Hanna she knew that questioning would only result in rambling excuses.

She cleared her throat and started to scroll down a page. "I'm afraid the only records we have on 'unexplained phenomena' are a few newspaper clippings from about 2009 to now – and most of them are murder cases," she explained, finally looking up at him. She'd gotten used to his 'zombie gimmick'. "Is there anything that you're specifically looking for?"

"Something along the lines of the paranormal – not the usual crop circles or ghosts, though. Something a bit more… inexplicable, I suppose."

She typed in a few words, scrolled, and then pushed back her chair to get up. "One moment," she excused herself, and disappeared into one of the many corridors of books.

While she was gone Benedict swept his gaze across the library. It seemed he was the only one there.

He knew the building and its maze of shelves well, spending many a day reading and browsing while Hanna was at work. The smell of old and new books, dust and polish was comforting. The library itself was small, both on the inside and out. It was mostly circular, with skylights puncturing the roof and old wood furnishings peppered here and there. _A second home, of sorts, _Benedict thought.

Sarah returned with two books and a stack of newspaper clippings. "These are all that we have," she said, a hint of an apologetic tone in her voice. She pushed them towards Benedict and flashed him a small, but stiff, smile. "If you can't find what you're looking for feel free to use to the Internet. Happy hunting."

"Thanks."

Benedict took the books and clippings and walked to the back of the library, where a small coffee table and velvet armchair sat in the corner by the window. The window was large and looked out onto a street bordered by cafés, on a busy day normally filled with bustling waiters and families. The zombie looked out of the window as he put the records down, and allowed his gaze to linger on the couple that had just walked out of a restaurant. They were holding hands and the woman was laughing. Her face was blushed pink, the way she glanced at her partner was soft, endearing.

Benedict drew his gaze away, realising that eventually they would notice him watching.

He often found himself staring at people through this window, trying to remember what it was like to have been like that. Alive. Feeling. Capable of loving. He even found that sometimes, when he'd been thinking too much, he would try to breathe – only to be unable to recall how. _Lungs,_ he had thought. _What is it like to have air fill them? _He'd almost felt sad. Almost.

Pursing his lips, Benedict picked up the first book and began paging through.

About an hour and a half later he had found nothing but a few murder cases that were unusuallty similar. All of the murder victims, the oldest from September 2009 to the youngest in November 2011, had been found in deserted places, perfectly untouched except for a few bruises ranging in placement. Every one of them, Benedict read, had been, quite literally, scared to death.

Benedict placed the newspaper clippings back onto the table, carefully storing this information away for future reference. He curled his hand under his chin, letting his thoughts steep for a while. Then he stood up and walked over to the closest computer. Seating himself before it, he opened Google and typed in _Slender Man_.

Another hour and a half passed before Benedict finally looked away from the screen. He stared at the keyboard, but he didn't see the keys – he only saw the tall, suited form of the being known as 'The Slender Man'.

_"The Slender Man,_ Benedict began to think, carefully, _is nothing but an Internet phenomenon. The 'Marble Hornets' project is a means of documenting the existence of 'him', though it's quite obvious that the entire thing is fictional. Some people, however, believe that they have witnessed him. They're either lying or highly schizophrenic._

The zombie thought about Hanna, and recalled the muffled conversation he had with Worth last night. Hanna had mentioned that he thought the Slender Man was 'stalking' him, but that he also wasn't sure that this was the case – and neither did Worth.

_Hanna wouldn't lie about something like this,_ Benedict reasoned, _and I doubt that he's schizophrenic._

Benedict reached out and clicked on _Google Images_. He scanned through the supposed pictures of the Slender Man, scrolling through them until he stopped on one in particular. It was a picture of the being standing in a forest, with large black tentacles spreading out from behind his back. Intrigued, the zombie leaned forwards and clicked on the link that supported the picture.

_The Slender Man,_ the text read, _has been known for capturing his victims, normally small children, using his tentacle-like appendages. Various versions of the Slender Man say that these 'tentacles' have superhuman strength and can crush a man's skull much like a boa constrictor. One enthusiast has commented, "The Slender Man is something that terrifies you and comforts you into his arms, and most of the time you either die because you're so shit-scared or because you weren't able to escape. It's only the lucky that can run with just a few bruises – but even that hardly happens."_

Something clicked in Benedict's head, and he turned to stare at the newspaper clippings. _The oldest murder victim found was in 2009, the Slender Man was created in 2009,_ he thought, mind suddenly racing. _Could they have died because of –?_

"Oh my God."

Benedict looked up sharply. He saw Sarah standing close by, staring at the flat screen television that was propped up on a wall. He looked at the screen and was sure if his stomach was still functioning it would churn.

The news was on, and a reporter was standing outside Mrs. Salleh's house. Police and forensic investigators were flitting in and out, with bystanders watching excitedly just outside the barriers of yellow and black caution tape. On the news ticker the headlines read,

**WIFE DECAPITATES HUSBAND AND RUNS.**

"Can you turn it up, please?" Benedict asked quickly, keeping his eyes glued on the TV. Wordlessly Sarah picked up the remote and raised the volume, the sound of the reporter's voice streaming through the room.

"… police found the decapitated body of Mr. Salleh, sales associate and manager of the _Twin Roses _sports bar. No damage or wounds were found on the body, but the location of the victim's head is still unknown. After numerous eye-witness reports, police suspect that Mrs. Salleh, the victim's late wife, is the murderer. Witnesses have accounted that there was a large amount of conflict occurring in the Salleh residence last night, and that soon after the conflict had stopped Mrs. Salleh was seen leaving the premises. Fingerprints have been lifted from a handprint that was found next to Mr. Salleh's body, and forensics are currently matching the prints to the actual killer. They have also presented the information that the weapon used to decapitate Mr. Salleh was a small but very sharp blade, possibly ranging from a kitchen knife to a dagger.

"A knife _was_ found in the house that had traces of blood on it, but was too large and too blunt to have been the murder weapon. It is suspected that Mrs. Salleh, presuming that she is the murderer, either escaped with the actual weapon or dumped it close by. In addition, one witness claims that it wasn't _just _Mrs. Salleh who was involved in the murder. This witness, who shall remain anonymous, reports that they saw two people enter and exit the Salleh residence before and after the conflict. Signs suggest that there may have been other persons present during the murder, but no immediate evidence has been found to support this. Nonetheless, police are keeping an eye out for Mrs. Salleh and her possible accomplices. If you have any evidence or have witnessed anything that could help investigations contact the police immediately. Thank you, and this has been –"

The screen turned black. Sarah had switched off the TV and put the remote down. "That's just… disgusting," she said, and grimaced.

Benedict barely heard her speak as he jumped upright, grabbing his trenchcoat from the armchair and heading for the exit. He threw a 'thank you' over his shoulder to Sarah's bewildered person before hurrying out the library.

As he pushed open the door so his shoulder caught on the edge of the frame, causing a brief shock of pain to run down his arm. The zombie grunted in surprise and paused to reach under his trenchcoat and find the source of the pain. His fingers found a tear in his shirt, and another tear in his flesh.

_It must have been from last night,_ he thought, and then felt a short spark of something akin to panic. _Last night. The police are all over last night. I have to get to Hanna._

He broke into a swift jog, resisting the urge to run in case it drew attention. A stone of worry sat heavily in his chest, and it was growing heavier. He tried focusing on his steps, on the air pushing against his face, but the worry kept distracting him.

And, suddenly, Benedict had the rather disquieting feeling that things were about to go very, very wrong.

...

Hanna sat on the edge of the mattress, staring at his arm. He could feel every heartbeat – _thump, thump, thump_, like the knocking of a fist on a wooden door – reverberate in his chest as he stared at the bruises.

_Well, fuck, _he thought, and started when keys rattled in the lock of the door.

The red head lunged for his hoodie, dragging it over his head and arms just as Benedict opened the door.

"Nox – hey!" he greeted his partner breathlessly. He shot the zombie an awkward smile that quickly fell upon noticing the expression on the other party's face. _Shit,_ Hanna thought, _shit, shit, _shit. _He saw the bruises!_

"Hanna, we need to talk," Nox said, closing the door behind him quietly.

Hanna swallowed nervously. "Oh, um, sure," he replied, awkwardly. "W-what do you want to talk about?" He scrambled uselessly for some form of excuse – but his mind had, conveniently, gone quite blank.

Nox started to walk towards him, taking off his coat and folding it as he approached. "I was sitting down and I saw –" he stopped, giving Hanna an odd look.

"What?" Hanna asked, heart skipping at how strangled his voice came out.

"Why are you wearing a hoodie?" Nox asked. "It's over twenty degrees in here."

"Really?" Hanna feigned puzzlement, inwardly floundering. "I could've sworn that there was a chill in here."

"Just like you swear there was a moth in here last night?"

Hanna faltered. _Shit. _"U-uh –"

"There was a report on the news just a few moments ago," Nox carried on, sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs and leaning towards Hanna. "The police found Mr. Salleh's body."

A part of Hanna breathed a sigh of relief at the change of subject, but another one balled up at the news. "Oh, God," he said quietly. "They know we were there, don't they? Mrs. Salleh told them."

"Not quite," his partner replied, clasping his hands together. "Mrs. Salleh ran off, just like I said she would. She took Mr. Salleh's head and the umbrella with her, too, but that's not important. Somebody _did_ see us last night going into and leaving Mrs. Salleh's house – _but_," he added, when Hanna blanched, "there's no physical evidence to prove that it was you and I in particular. So far the police somewhat suspect that other people may have been involved in Mr. Salleh's death, but they aren't making any definite decisions."

_"Yet,_" Hanna corrected. "They aren't making any definite decisions _yet."_

Nox sighed and stared at his shoes for a moment, then thought of something. "They didn't mention the pentagram," he said, almost to himself.

Hanna frowned. "Seriously? I would have thought that'd be something which really stood out – other than, yanno, Mr. Salleh's _dead body_. Kinda hard to look past a dead body."

"Mrs. Salleh must have washed it away – but why?"

"Well, she probably already knew that she'd be labelled as a _murderer_, so maybe she didn't want to be labelled as a _religion-crazed _one. Or something like that."

"Or something like that, yes."

They looked at each other in silence, both churning over their thoughts.

"I guess we're gonna have to lay low for a while, huh?" Hanna spoke up. He was uncomfortably warm with his hoodie on.

Nox grunted in agreement. "Which works out fine. That means you have time to heal." He looked up at the clock on the wall. "Speaking of which, I should probably give you your medicine and tea."

Hanna made a face, but knew arguing was pointless. "Fine," he huffed, getting up to take his pills. Once finished he left Nox to make the tea and went into the bathroom, ripping his hoodie off within seconds of closing the door.

He lurched towards the sink, leaning on its ceramic base and staring at his arm. The flesh was swollen, the bruises a kaleidoscope of burst blood vessels and crushed muscle. He hesitantly ran a finger across one of the curled discolorations, half-heartedly hoping that it wasn't really there. The pain that greeted him at the contact, however, said otherwise.

Hanna swallowed thickly. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up, and he abruptly felt very much exposed – and very sick. "Oh God," he whispered, panic mounting. "Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God oh –"

His heart stopped when there was a knock on the door. "Hanna, your tea is ready," came the voice of Nox.

"I-I'll be there now!" Hanna managed to say, flinching at how loud his voice sounded in his frozen mind. Straightening, he pulled his hoodie back over his head and turned on the tap. _Calm down, calm down,_ he urged himself, hands trembling as he cupped them to gather water. _This might just be an illusion, psychosomatic or whatever the fuck it's called._

He splashed the water onto his face, body shuddering with the shock of cold. _Yeah, yeah that's it. Psychosomatic._ He dried his face vigorously with a towel, as if in attempt to stop himself from shaking. _It's all in my head, that's all._

Lowering the towel and opening his eyes, Hanna stared at his arm again. Then he looked at his reflection in the mirror. His face was haggard, pale, frightened. He held the look of a frightened boy, one who was starting to teeter quite dangerously over the metaphorical edge of sanity.

_It's all in my head,_ he repeated, though with less conviction this time. His knuckles were white. _All in my… head._

His eyes slowly moved up to look at the shadows on the ceiling. They clung there, thick and waiting.

_He's in my head._

Hanna started when his phone vibrated in his hoodie pocket. He fumbled to get it out and slid the screen upwards, unlocking it. A text message from 'Unknown' sat on the screen. Brow creasing, but glad for the distraction, Hanna opened it.

_"Need help urgently. Come to forest. – Michelle S."_

The red head read the message again. "'Michelle S'?" Hanna murmured, confused. Then his eyes widened. "Michelle Salleh. Mrs. Salleh."

His inner investigator overtook his dread, and instantly he was shoving his phone back into his pocket and tugging open the door, nearly tumbling into Nox. "Hanna – what –?" the zombie began, bewildered, only to be cut off.

"Grab your coat, Jenson," Hanna told him hurriedly, darting towards his bed. He grabbed the pair of tattered jeans that were laying on the ground, yanked them on over his boxers and scrabbled for his glasses.

"Why? What's happening?"

"I just got a text – I think it might be from Mrs. Salleh."

Jenson raised an eyebrow. "How did she get your –"

"I don't know," the red head replied, finally finding his glasses and pushing them onto his face. He rifled through a stack of papers, looking for his sharpie. "But I think she's in trouble and needs our help. She says she's in the forest." Hanna's stomach twisted at the word, and the recollection that came with it.

"The forest?" Jensen repeated, stopping in the act of retrieving his coat. "Hanna, this doesn't sound very safe."

"Bro – our entire line of _work _isn't safe. Period."

"Be that as it may, I find it highly unlikely that she'd ask _us _for help considering what happened last night. She threw us out of her house, remember?"

Hanna clenched his jaw, seeing the truth in his partner's words. "I know," he said, discovering his sharpie and straightening to face his partner. "But if she _is_in trouble I don't want to take the risk of getting her killed."

The red head looked at the ground, his expression oddly placid. "Too many of my clients have died because I played a game of fifty-fifty," he said bitterly. Jensen thought of Conrad. Hanna looked back up. "I won't let it happen again," he said firmly.

The zombie felt a pang of sorrow, and frustration. _Forever putting others first, and always running screaming through the dark._ "Very well," Jensen gave in, and followed Hanna as he dashed out the apartment.

* * *

**Please read and review, critique where necessary as you'll help me develop my writing further.**

**No flames, thank you.**


	9. Chapter IX

**Sorry for the absurdly long wait for this.**

**Just a quick thank you to everybody that's been supporting me through this, my uttermost gratitude and thanks towards all of you guys!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter IX

Hanna stopped. He stared at the forest before him, following the dirt path as it curved from the side-walk and into the gaping mass of trees. The ground was covered in a film of fog, one that was so thick with humidity it barely stirred as Jensen's long-legged stride passed through it.

The zombie paused at Hanna's side, following the smaller man's hardened look. He shifted his gaze from one tree to the next, watching as the condensation dripped from the leaves. Jensen still felt uncertain. He didn't know if what they were about to do would be dangerous or not - _well, more dangerous than usual_, he corrected himself – and that worried him. He wanted to talk Hanna out of it. But the zombie knew all too well that trying to talk Hanna out of a case would be very much like an attempt to talk wallpaper off a wall. Essentially – impossible.

Despite this knowledge he said to Hanna, "I still don't think this is a good idea."

Hanna grunted, inwardly agreeing. Just by standing a few yards away from the forest he felt sick and paranoid, his chest already starting to ache at the magic unfolding from the shadows between the trees. He didn't know what was waiting for him in there – Mrs. Salleh, a trap, the Slender Man. The latter, the red head thought with an involuntary lurch of his stomach, he hoped would not grace this already-possibly-doomed day with his presence.

_Which he won't,_ Hanna found himself thinking, somewhat desperately, _because he's not real. He can't be real. Right?_

Hanna's heart tightened. _Wrong._

"Hanna?" Jensen asked.

"Mm."

"If this entire thing turns out to be trap, do we have a plan B?"

"Run. Run like fucking hell."

"Okay. Glad to know we're prepared if things go wrong, then."

"When."

"What?"

_"When_ things go wrong. We'll be prepared _when."_

Jensen raised a brow, not expecting the dire attitude of his partner. "If you insist," he replied carefully, then motioned towards the forest. "Shall we?"

Hanna grunted again, and they set off down the dirt path.

...

They followed the path further into the forest, where the trees were packed tightly together and where the shadows coagulated underneath their roots. Hanna and Jensen's footsteps made no sounds, muffled by the fog and blanket of pine needles underfoot. The canopy above provided some protection from the sun, which was still powerful in its warmth despite the partly clouded sky – but it also made the forest dim, much too dim for Jensen's liking.

As they walked so Hanna and Jensen called out Mrs. Salleh's name. Their only response was birdsong and the occasional snap of a twig, which made Hanna start and reach for his sharpie every time. Understandably he was uneasy, most people were when it came to this neck of woods. Though, Jensen noticed, Hanna was a little more skittish than expected. The zombie's thoughts were drawn to the Slender Man, and his approach to the situation darkened decidedly.

Hanna noticed the slight change in the zombie's expression. He looked to Jensen curiously. "You okay, Cain?" he asked.

_Hardly,_ Cain thought. "I'm fine," he lied, and then directed the question to Hanna with a sidelong look. "Are _you_ okay?"

Hanna, as if anticipating the question, answered almost instantly. "Me? Oh, I'm fine! Yanno – like you. Fine," he replied, voice cracking at the last word. He coughed, averted his gaze from Cain's. Rubbing his neck in attempt to conceal the creeping blush, he continued lamely, "Just… focusing on finding on Mrs. Salleh. Yanno."

Cain grunted, unconvinced. "Are you sure that's the only thing you're focusing on?"

Hanna faltered at the question, his stomach heaving._ Fuck, he knows_. "W-What?" he stuttered, unable to prevent the alarm sweeping across his face as he looked at his partner.

Cain started to repeat the question, but was interrupted by a familiar British-accented voice yelling from behind him.

"Hey! Hey, Hanna and co!"

Hanna and Cain turned around, watching as Conrad – carrying a black umbrella and sporting an outfit that, albeit rather fetching and elegantly tailored, was better suited for a blizzard rather than a sweltering 27° Celsius summer day – jogged towards them. With the amount of layers he was wearing, he did so with the grace of a penguin.

"Hey Connie!" Hanna shouted back in greeting. Never had he been more relieved to see the vampire, or anybody else for that matter, that could break up the possibly detrimental conversation that could have just occurred. "Why are you out? It's broad daylight! You look like marshmallow, by the way!"

Conrad scowled at Hanna as he finally drew up to them. "I do _not_ look like a marshmallow, thank you," he told Hanna firmly, but straightened his coat regardless. He gave Cain a curt nod in acknowledgement, Cain returned it even though he didn't appreciate the vampire's unexpected arrival. "And as you can see," Conrad continued, still scowling at Hanna, "I'm perfectly safe from the sunlight." He tapped the handle of his umbrella to exemplify his point.

"Sure, _Conmellow,"_ Hanna replied, grinning. The grin, to Cain, looked a little desperate.

Conrad rolled his eyes. _"Anyways,"_ he said pointedly. "You'll be delighted to know that Worth kicked me out of bed to get you. Apparently there's something important he needs to tell you – though why _he_ couldn't get up and out of his apartment is beyond –"

"Hold on a mo, Conmellow," Hanna stopped him suddenly. Conrad quietened, pursing his lips in annoyance. "You just said," Hanna began, _"Worth_ kicked_ you_ out of _bed_ in _his_ apartment. Are you leaving something out here, or…?"

Conrad stared at him blankly, wondering what on Earth the investigator was getting at, and then his eyes widened with horror. _"N-No!_ That wasn't –" he spluttered, fumbling for words. Hanna found this greatly amusing, continuing to grin in a fashion that made the vampire even more distressed. "Just – no. _No._ There is _nothing_, I repeat, _nothing_ like that happening between that hack and myself whatsoever and _will you stop leering at me like that, for God's sake –!"_

"Why does he need to see Hanna? And how did you find us?" Cain interrupted, eager to get to the point.

Conrad, glad for the distraction, gave Hanna's snickering form a final glare before returning to his original conversation. "I was on my way to your apartment but I saw you guys going through the forest instead, so I followed," the vampire replied sourly. "Worth didn't specify why he needs to talk to you, he never does. But he told me to tell Hanna to, and I'm not paraphrasing here, 'get your schizo ass back to my office or I'll up the dosage on your crazy-pills'."

Hanna stopped snickering. Instead, his brow furrowed. Conrad raised a single carefully-plucked eyebrow. "I knew you were crazy," he told the red head, a slight hint of smugness in his voice, "but I didn't know you were clinically _insane."_

"I'm _not,"_ Hanna rebounded hotly, and then sighed with frustration. _Dammit, Worth,_ he thought, _you're only making things worse._ The red head raised his arm, ruffling through his hair as he began to reply. "Fine," he said. "Tell Worth I'll be there soon –"

Conrad hissed, and Hanna froze. _"Jesus,_ Hanna," the vampire cried, eyes wide. "What happened to your_ arm?"_

Hanna's stomach dropped to the ground, and as he struggled to formulate a response and hide the bruises so there was an ear-piercing screech from within the forest. The three men swivelled around to stare at the point where they'd heard the screech, Conrad's mouth wide with fright.

"What the hell was that?" the vampire demanded, instantly on edge.

"It sounded like a woman's scream," Cain noted, eyes flitting from tree to tree warily.

He heard Hanna withdraw a sharp breath. "Mrs. Salleh," he whispered, and then abruptly dashed off.

"Hanna!" Conrad and Cain yelled in unison, and ran after him.

Cain overtook Conrad easily, sprinting past the vampires who seemed to be struggling to move his legs faster than a jog. "Fucking - _I can't run in these bloody clothes!"_ the vampire exclaimed, and then said much louder, "Fine, Hanna! I am a marshmallow! _Now slow the hell down!"_

The zombie continued to sprint, already starting to lose the sight of Hanna's lithe form to labyrinth of trees. He looked over his shoulder to Conrad, "I can't lose Hanna!" he shouted to the vampire. "I'll handle this – go back to Worth's apartment and tell him we'll be there soon!"

Conrad nodded and slowed down until he was reduced to a stop. Cain looked forwards again, barely managing to catch the vampire's last comment, "Oh - _and tell Hanna that there's nothing going on between me and Worth!"_

The air pressed firmly against Cain as he ran, like a hand smothering his attempts at catching up with Hanna. The zombie was able to push through such pressure, feeling no exertion other than the slight pain of the tear in his shoulder. It was at times like these that Cain appreciated his deceased state, for it enabled him to continue the fight when Hanna's energy dimmed – or, in this case, to catch up with Hanna when he abruptly decided to run head-first into danger's open arms.

He really wished Hanna would stop doing that.

Something large and black caught the corner of Cain's eye. He turned to look but it disappeared before he could focus, but the little sight he caught gave the zombie the impression that a person had been standing there. _Odd,_ he thought, and looked back up just in time to see Hanna lunge off the path and into the undergrowth. Cain did the same, veering to the side and nearly falling as his momentum was lost and his shoes slipped on the damp pine needles. He regained his balance swiftly and was soon plunging into the thick of the trees after Hanna.

"Hanna!" Cain yelled, unable to see anything of the red head besides the wake of rustling leaves that he left. The zombie continued his pursuit with lips tightly pressed together, fists pumping at the air and legs nimbly jumping over fallen logs and upturned roots. The ferns and branches of trees tugged at his ankles and arms. "Hanna!"

Hanna could hear his partner's shouts from behind, faint but growing closer. The red head hated himself for taking off like that and making Cain follow, like he usually did, but he knew it was necessary. He knew something had happened to Mrs. Salleh, and an uncomfortable tug in his chest was enough for him to surmise just who – or _what_ – had caused her to scream.

And then his foot got caught on something, the red head barely managing an 'oomf!' before his face met the ground. Leaves did not scatter at the impact, for they were too saturated with humidity, of which instantly clung to Hanna's clothes. The red head pushed himself up to his knees, straightening his glasses and kneading at his chest. His lungs were burning, not just from the lack of oxygen. Something close by was heavy with magic. Hanna narrowed his eyes curiously. Something _very_ close by.

Turning around slowly, still on his knees, Hanna saw what tripped him. It was an arm. Attached to that arm was a body, and he recognised that body to be Mrs. Salleh. Hanna tried to look at her face, an impossible feat considering that it had been torn away from her head. What was left was a blank slate of flesh and blood, framed almost prettily by her black hair splayed about her. Hanna hesitantly reached out to touch her wrist, half-heartedly hoping for some pulse, unsurprised when there wasn't one.

The red head sat back, regarding Mrs. Salleh. Ignoring her head, she looked like a woman who had simply decided to lie down and sleep. Clean, neat placement of limbs, clothes unruffled. A picturesque moment of silence, only truly horrifying in its simplicity when the eyes settled upon her non-existent face. The wound, compared to the body, was garish and brutal, her neck surrounded by a network of bruises in coils. It was a messy job. A hungry, aggressive, and messy job made by a creature Hanna knew was now impossible to run from.

Hanna could have saved her from him. But he didn't. And now he felt sick.

"Hanna!"

"Over here, Daniel," Hanna replied, softly, the throbbing in his chest echoing through his head.

Daniel appeared in front of Hanna, pulling aside branches to get to him. The zombie stepped forward, saw that he was standing on Mrs. Salleh's hair, and slowly stepped to the side instead. He walked around the body to where Hanna knelt, staring at it grimly.

"So," he said quietly, "I guess you found her."

"I guess so."

They both fell silent, Hanna staring at where Mrs. Salleh's face should be. Bile had risen in his throat, and he felt very cold.

"What do we do now?" Daniel asked eventually, eager to break the red head's rather disconcerting state of silence.

Hanna didn't reply for a moment, instead he looked down at his hands. They were shaking. The red head balled them into fists, willed them to calm, and took a long, uncomfortably warm breath. "We leave the body," he said, voice monotonous, a sign Daniel knew well to mean that Hanna was trying to control his emotions. Getting up, the red head finally looked away from the body to glance at his partner. "Somebody's bound to find it. We've already endangered ourselves from being here this long, we need to go."

Without a word, Daniel followed Hanna back through the forest and onto the constructed path. Hanna walked fast, now clutching his sharpie in his hoodie pocket, attempting to draw some kind of strength from it. _You didn't save her,_ he thought to himself. _You let your client die. Another one._

"Hanna," Daniel said to him as they walked, concerned for the red head. "Don't –"

"I won't worry about it," Hanna finished for him, bluntly.

Daniel sighed, looking at the smaller man worryingly. "I mean it, Hanna," he told him. "We both know that you can't take this kind of situation well."

"Yup," Hanna replied, and said no more.

They continued back the way they came in, the silence hanging between them almost as dense as the summer heat. Hanna was tense, heart now thumping audibly in his head. The closer they got to the entrance to the forest the more intense the magic in his lungs grew, the more it crackled and burned in warning. He tried to ignore it, knowing that he would alert Daniel if he allowed himself to show his growing apprehension. Such apprehension was sitting in his stomach, a stone of ice.

They rounded a corner and a pine cone crunched under Jensen's foot. A handful of birds burst out of a tree in a rush of flapping wings. Hanna made a strangled sound and could not resist his instinctive lunge for his partner's arm, clutching the zombie with white-knuckled fingers.

_"Shit_ but that scared me," the red head hissed, heart hammering in his chest. Jensen looked down at Hanna's hand around his forearm, and caught the beginnings of the bruises around his wrist.

The red head seemed to realise that he saw this, for he quickly pulled his arm back and shoved both hands into his hoodie pocket. He cleared his throat and looked away, face burning. "Sorry," he muttered, and hurriedly started to walk again. "L-Let's keep going."

Jensen didn't move. Hanna could feel his partner's stare on his back. _Fuck, calm down,_ he told himself, swallowing the thickness of his throat. _Psychosomatic, it's all psychosomatic._

"Hanna."

The red head winced at his partner's voice, and stopped. "Y-yeah, Michelangelo?" he replied, without looking back. _Please don't say we have to talk, please don't say –_

"Can you come here? We need to talk."

Hanna stopped breathing, jaw clenched. He stood for a moment, frozen, and then let his head loll back to look up at treetops. _Fuck._

Breathing again to quieten the pounding of magic in his veins, Hanna turned on his heel and obediently walked back to where Michelanagelo stood. The zombie looked as impassive as ever, save for the slight frown that curled his lips. Hanna knew that frown well, as subtle as it was. It usually meant that the zombie had noticed something, something he didn't like or knew Hanna was hiding. A frown that Hanna, of late, had come to notice had been on his partner's face a little too often for comfort.

_He saw the bruises, just like Conrad,_ Hanna realised as he walked towards the zombie, _and if they both saw them then that's 'goodbye' to my psychosomatic theory._ He stopped before Michelangelo, cautiously meeting his partner's unblinking gaze. Hanna clutched his sharpie tighter in his fists. _And 'hello' to the Slender Man._

"Yeah?" Hanna asked, his face aching when he forced a smile. "What's up?"

"Your behaviour, Hanna," Michelangelo said quietly.

Hanna tried to put on his best incredulous look. "My _behaviour?_" he repeated, and a strained chuckle came from his throat. The best way to get out this conversation, his instincts told him, was to make light of it. "Bro, you sound like a parent."

Michelangelo pursed his lips. "I'm being serious, Hanna."

"Ooh, now a _serious_ parent," Hanna joked. He was starting to feel a bit light headed.

"Hanna, please –"

"Did you, like, catch me drinking from the milk carton, or something? _Damn,_ thought I got away with that one, haha."

"Hanna –"

"Or did you hear me talk back to back to Worth? Not respecting my 'elders' or shit like that –?"

_"Hanna."_

The red head shut up. He stared at the zombie, not expecting the harsh tone. Evidently, Michelangelo was not in the mood for some humour, as constrained as it was. Which, in turn, made Hanna's heart skip several times. He really wanted to sit down now, the world shouldn't start spinning like this.

They were silent for a minute, staring at each other – Michelangelo's expression now one of anger and worry, Hanna's of unsuccessfully-concealed anxiety and illness. The forest remained quiet, holding its breath.

Michelangelo was the first to break eye-contact. Looking away from Hanna he withdrew one hand from his trenchcoat pocket. He held it in front of him expectantly. "Let me see your arm," he said, pointedly. It was not a request.

Hanna looked down at the hand in front of him. He swallowed thickly. He knew, at this point, he couldn't avoid the matter any longer.

The red head lifted his right hand out of his hoodie pocket, and hesitantly he placed it in Michelangelo's own gloved one. The leather of the glove stuck to his skin. It was hot, but Hanna shivered at the contact.

The zombie looked down and turned Hanna's hand over, so that his inner arm was upwards. His hold on the red head's wrist was firm, a tell-tale sign that rang warning bells in Hanna's head. As Michelangelo took hold of the sleeve and began to pull it back, Hanna suddenly felt very exposed. He watched, horrified, as the bruises were uncovered. They had grown darker, much darker. The blooms of reds and purples were now verging on black, like ink stains in motion. He now understood why Conrad had been so aghast by them.

Hanna tore his eyes away from the sight to search Michelangelo's face for some kind of reaction. He only saw the previous expression again, though it had grown blacker – just like the bruises.

As Michelangelo pulled the sleeve all the way up Hanna's arm, so that the fabric bunched at the crux of his elbow, the first thing that came to the zombie's mind was that they had developed a lot worse than he anticipated. Granted, it was only natural for bruises to darken as they matured – but, with the little medical knowledge Michelangelo had, he knew it most certainly _wasn't_ natural for them to be turning pitch-black in such little time of acquisition.

Michelangelo looked at Hanna. Hanna's heart jumped at the eye-contact. The red head gave him a crooked, almost distressed, smile. "I-It's nothing," he said. He was going to be sick.

A moment's pause, and then Michelangelo traced a finger delicately along the curls of bruises. "This," he replied slowly, holding Hanna's wide, frightened stare, "is not nothing."

_Déjà vu._ Hanna instinctively pulled his arm away as the dizzying feeling welled up inside him. Michelangelo only tightened his grip, and his gaze intense with worry. "Why didn't you tell me, Hanna?" he asked, and there was something in the way he asked the question that made Hanna's throat close up with guilt.

Hanna shook his head, resisting the urge to vomit there and then, and a frightened but oddly cynical emotion rose at the back of Hanna's mind. "Honestly, Dusk," Hanna said, words coming out hoarse, "you wouldn't have believe me if I tried to tell you."

"Try me."

Hanna didn't reply. Then he said it, and the truth struck him like an icy fist to his heart. "It's the Slender Man. He's real, and he's after me."

Dusk didn't move for a few seconds, and then slowly let go of Hanna's arm. Hanna watched, wary, as the zombie's eyes flickered from his face to over his shoulder. Dusk blinked. An odd thing to do, Hanna noticed, for he knew that the taller man only blinked when he was surprised.

"You're right," Dusk replied after some time. "I wouldn't have believed you."

Hanna gently pulled is sleeve down, and he let his gaze drop to the floor. His breath felt leaden in his lungs. He tried to swallow the bile in his throat. But he looked back up at Dusk's next words.

"But I do now. Because he's right behind you."

Hanna swivelled around, eyes widening to the size of saucers. Sure enough, standing a few feet away, was the Slender Man.

"Oh. _Fuck."_ Hanna whispered. He grabbed Dusk's arm. "Plan B. _Now!"_

And they ran. They ran like fucking hell.

The forest passed in a blur of green and brown, converging into one colour and swimming at the corners of Hanna's vision. He focused solely on getting out of the forest, furiously ignoring the shrieking of his thoughts and the crackling of magic in his chest. Dusk was besides him, nimbly dodging the outstretched roots and foliage.

Hanna snuck a look over his shoulder, confused when he did not see the Slender Man coming after them. Torso burning, the red head slowed to a jog and then to a stop. He turned around fully, doubled over with his hands on his knees, finally retching as his stomach could not be contained anymore. He retched once, twice, a third time, the fourth nothing more came out except for a bit of blood.

As he got his breath back so Hanna surveyed the area. The forest remained unmoving except for the undergrowth that swayed to halt after Hanna and Dusk's wakes. The red head waited, dizzy and terrified, as he was finally able to control his breathing again. Still there was no sign of the Slender Man.

Easing himself up straight, Hanna's brow creased and turned to Dusk. "Looks like we lost him," he said. He stiffened. Dusk was not there. Hanna looked around, spinning on the spot but unable to find the zombie anymore. "And," he added, "I've lost _you_. Fuck."

* * *

**Please read and review, critique where necessary as this will allow me to develop my writing further!**

**No flames, thank you.**


	10. Chapter X

**Hello again, dears! **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter X

Searching for Dusk had proved to be futile. The zombie was nowhere to be found, and Hanna had been looking and calling desperately in the forest for well over three hours now. As the day lengthened so the heat grew thicker, so much so that it began stripping the red head of his strength. Still he searched, stumbling and yelling for his partner, until the lack of moisture in his throat made it impossible for any sound to formulate.

At this point Hanna found himself unable to walk anymore, and before his mind could register it he was lying on the ground with his face buried in damp pine needles. His mind swayed and, eventually, settled.

_How can you lie here,_ he thought to himself after a while, _when Greg could still be out there?_

Hanna forced his eyes to open, blinking through his blurred vision. He realised that he was next to somebody, and recognised them as Mrs. Salleh. Furrowing his eyebrows, he wondered how he'd managed to end up back to this part of the forest. As he thought, Mrs. Salleh's head turned to face him.

The red head's thoughts stopped dead.

He stared at Mrs. Salleh, who stared back – in her own faceless kind of way. Something akin to what the Slender Man would do. Except Hanna felt no sudden lull of thoughts, no illusionary false sense of security, that the Slender Man seemed to be able to produce. No, Hanna just felt the very real and very sharp need to beat the shit out of whatever was laying next to him before it attacked his face.

Which Hanna nearly did, as he rolled over and hauled himself to his feet, until he saw that Mrs. Salleh was no longer there.

He spun around, searching wildly for the sight of the woman's body. He couldn't spot her, which made Hanna feel quite ill. _It's bad enough that I have the Slender Man wandering around,_ he thought, _now I have a fucking _corpse _that's missing._

Forcing himself to breathe, the red head turned to look back at where the corpse had been. He noticed that there was a path of flattened foliage, and that blood stained a few ferns. Somebody or something, maybe an animal, must have found the body and dragged it away. Hanna, being Hanna, followed the trail.

It went deeper into the forest, where the trees grew closer together and where the air was hot and unmoving. Hanna pulled at the collar of his shirt, his fingers slick with sweat. He winced when his chest throbbed, alerting him to a higher level of magic in the area. This did not deter him from following the trail, but he cracked his knuckles nervously, eyes darting to the shadows and back.

It was then he became aware of the soft, but definitely present, sound of something ringing. Pausing, Hanna looked around in attempt to source the sound. It sounded like it was coming from ahead, so he continued to follow the path, all the while noticing that the blood on the foliage had grown in its quantity. His chest continued to throb, but did not heighten in pain. _No sign of the Slender Man, then,_ he concluded, _but there's definitely _something _close by._

He walked until he came to a clearing, where the earth dipped into a slight ravine. The ringing was much more prominent now. Hanna followed the trail down to the centre of the ravine, where it stopped abruptly. Hesitating for a brief moment, Hanna stepped forward and started down the hill. The soil was loose and wet, making it difficult for him to keep his grip. He slid twice, but soon enough reached the bottom of the ravine with nothing more than muddy shoes.

The ringing was louder, a constant sound that reminded Hanna of a cell phone. He frowned. _Actually,_ he realised, _it sounds _exactly _like a cell phone._

He looked around the ravine, eyes narrowed, and finally spotted something glowing beneath a collection of fronds splattered with blood. Hanna crept towards it, wary for a trap, and noticed that the trail ended about a foot away from the fronds. Reaching forward, the red head gently pulled away the thick leaves, not caring as the blood stained his sleeves and skin, and the ringing pierced his ears. He looked down and found that it was a phone, somewhat scratched but in good condition. The screen was alight – somebody was calling it.

Hanna, eyes widening, cautiously reached to answer it. It stopped ringing as his fingers came close.

Hanna froze.

He waited.

The forest had gone quiet.

Then there was a sharp _beep! _that jumpstarted Hanna's heart, and he recoiled.

He stepped back, alarmed, but realised that the sound was a text message alert. The red head stared at the phone, holding his breath, as a little envelop symbol presented itself on the screen. He looked up and around, wondering if the phone's owner was around looking for it. When he saw nobody, Hanna looked back at the phone and finally stooped over to pick it up. It was cold and surprisingly heavy in his hand. He stared at the little envelop, finger hovering over the cursor button. A twinge in his chest made him press it, and the text message opened.

_Don't look behind you. – Michelle S._

Hanna dropped the phone and ran.

...

Hanna didn't go to Worth's, as Conrad had told him to, and instead went straight back to the apartment with the hope that he might find Mercutio there. He launched himself up the building's stairs, knocking his shins against every third step in his haste. The bruises on his arm were stinging, a constant reminder of the horror that was unfolding before him. The pronounced and utter terror that had been building up from the entire situation in the forest was now dominating Hanna's whole being. It shook his mind, rattling his sanity as if it were in an icy box of glass that was dangerously close to shattering.

_Fuck, _he thought as he continued to ascend, _this is happening. This is _actually _happening._

At last he reached the floor of his apartment. He stumbled up the last of the stairs and headed down the corridor, though he came to a stop when he noticed that his apartment door was slightly ajar.

Hopeful, but reluctant, Hanna slowly approached the door. He pressed himself against the wall as he peered through the crack, biting his bottom lip and waiting for some sort of movement or sound. Nothing had been disturbed from its previous place. The red head mentally went back to when he and Bryce had left the apartment to seek out Mrs. Salleh, and he clearly remembered his partner locking the door and rattling the handle to check that it was secure – a habitual tendency of the zombie's.

Hanna looked at the lock itself, noted that there was no sign of destruction or tampering that would suggest a break-in. That meant somebody had used a key. Only Hanna, Bryce, and Mrs. Blaney had keys to the apartment. He doubted that Mrs. Blaney had invited herself in – he would have been able to smell her out without seeing her, with the amount of smoke and perfume hanging about her person – and knew that it was indeed only Bryce who could be inside.

_Too much thinking,_ he told himself, sweat trickling down his temples. _Just go._

Hanna slipped inside the apartment, closing the door behind him. He looked around, unconsciously withdrawing his sharpie, and slowly walked towards the centre of the apartment. The floorboards creaked underfoot, penetrating the still atmosphere.

"A-Arobin?" he said softly.

No answer.

He continued forwards, leaning forwards to see into the short hallway that led to the bathroom. It was dim in the apartment, a thin film of dusty sunlight slumping out of the window and across the floor. He called his partner again, "Tennant?"

No answer.

Hanna waited, wishing for some kind of delayed response. When there was none he forced himself to stop where he was, closing his eyes and releasing a long and trembling breath. "Chill, chill," he tried to soothe himself, putting his sharpie away. "Quinn must have come in and then left."

He splayed and clenched his hands experimentally, flinching when the wound in his palm ached. He looked at the bandage, noting at how dirty the bandage had gotten. _Need to refresh the gauze,_ he mused, and then remembered his brief meeting with Conrad in the forest. He looked to the clock on the wall and sighed. _Oh, Christ. Still have to get to Worth's._

Backtracking into the kitchenette, Hanna grasped one of the pill boxes that contained the Seroquel. He half-pondered on the possible consequences that may result in taking another pill after taking one already in the morning while he cracked the box open and tapped a pink pill out onto his palm. He continued to ponder on it as he swallowed the pill, taking it dry as he was so used to doing. He closed his eyes and found some comfort in the feeling of the pill making its way down to his throat – a tangible, physical feeling. So different to the terror currently coursing through his veins.

_Funny,_ he thought with an unexpected smile, as he opened his eyes and stared at the wall, _funny how we're all addicted to something. A serial killer is addicted to his victims, and a politic is to his lies. Worth is addicted to… well, _everything, _and Liam is addicted to a new start, I suppose._

Hanna looked down at his hands on the counter. White-knuckled, one bandaged, the other bruised. He only then noticed that his skin and sleeves were stained with blood, dried on his hands and damp on his clothes. Looking at his bruised hand, Hanna pulled back his sleeve and observed the curls of damaged skin that the Slender Man had left. The bruises were bordering on black in colour, and reminded the red head of a coiling ruin he once meddled with.

_And here I am,_ he thought. _Standing here, addicted to the assumption that despite all of this _shit _that's happening around me at this very moment, I still believe that _everything will be okay.

His thoughts and heart silenced. And then a short, sharp bark of laughter unexpectedly erupted from Hanna's throat.

The sound ricocheted off the apartment walls, shattering against them like porcelain. It was followed by a rippling tumult of laughter that Hanna, though shocked, was unable to suppress. The laughter filled his chest, his throat, his head, building up in its volume and its bitter, bitter lunacy. All at once the red head found himself laying on the floor again, for the second time that day, hands pressed to his chest and tears pricking his eyes as he _laughed _like he'd never experienced doing so before. The sheen of sweat on his face made his skin stick to the cold tile of the floor. Hanna stayed where he was until the laughter died away, leaving him numb and lying on the floor with hands against his aching chest.

The bruises were burning.

And then the apartment door opened, and Quinn stepped inside.

Hanna froze, eyes wide, unable to make a sound as he watched the zombie close the door behind him and lift two plastic bags, filled with groceries, onto the kitchen counter.

Hanna was suddenly reminded of his nightmare, when the Slender Man grew too close and Quinn had opened the door with grocery bags. Too familiar.

As Quinn removed his fedora he realised that Hanna was there, looking up at him. The zombie stared back, blinked once.

"Hanna?" he said, surprised. "What are you doing down there?"

The red head suddenly found thought functionality to be difficult. "G-Greg?" he managed to sputter. He was shaking as he forced himself to his feet, relief sweeping through him. He launched himself over the countertop and embraced the zombie tightly.

"Oh my god, oh my god," he whispered, feeling the tears drip down his cheeks. "Oh my fucking god – you're okay. _You're okay. _You are okay, right?" he added, pulling back to view his partner with wide, concerned eyes. He studied every inch of Greg, looking to make sure that he had not been injured.

His brow creased at how neat and, well, _not traumatised _Greg appeared.

"Of course I'm okay, Hanna," the zombie said, a hint of confusion in his voice. Hanna's throat tightened when Greg cupped his chin to look at his face. "But you certainly don't look it. What happened?"

Hanna gaped at him open-mouthed, for a moment unable to tell if his partner was joking or not. He pulled out of Greg's grasp, backing away a step as a bright, hot fear stabbed at him.

"You're kidding… right?" Hanna asked, voice cracking. The look of genuine concern and perplexity on his partner's face told him otherwise.

Hanna backed up further, hands rising to his head as realisation set in. "Oh no. O-o-oh no, no, no."

"Hanna? Hanna what is it?" Greg demanded, rounding the countertop to reach the red head.

The red head moved away, his stomach lurching in dismay and guilt when he suddenly felt quite wary of his partner.

"Please, Victor," he whispered, bile collecting in the back of his throat. "Please tell me you remember what just happened."

"What are you talking about?" Victor asked, taking a step towards Hanna and Hanna taking one back. "Hanna?"

"We were in the _forest_, Callaghan!" Hanna spluttered, unable to contain his growing hysteria. _This isn't happening, this isn't happening. _"We were in there and – and – and we were looking for Mrs. Salleh and we found her and then you found out about the Slender Man and then you were fucking _kidnapped _by him –"

"Calm down, Hanna, please."

_"I am fucking calm!"_

"No, you're – why are your hands covered in blood?"

"What –? No. No, Richard. You are _n-not_ doing this to me right now. You are _not _telling me that I'm going crazy."

"What are you _talking _about, Hanna?"

Hanna, at this point, had backed up against the kitchen counter and was on the verge of breaking down there and then. "Oh god, I've cracked," he whispered, squeezing his eyes closed as the impenetrable panic pounded in his head. "I've cracked, I'm sure of it."

"Hanna, please, tell me what's going on," Richard's smooth, soothing voice pleaded, much closer this time. Hanna felt a cool hand press against his own at his cheek, the contact familiar and somewhat comforting.

With his other hand, Hanna covered Richard's and he inhaled a heady and trembling breath of oxygen. "I don't know," He looked up to his partner –

Who had no face.

Hanna did not scream, could not scream, for he forgot how to breathe. Instead he just shoved past this – this _thing _that had replaced Richard and ran. He ran to the one person who made sense.

...

Worth looked up at the sound of somebody running in the corridor outside his door. The familiar clumsy slaps of shoes against the ground told him that it was Hanna. Sighing, the doctor took his feet off his desk and pulled out a cigarette from the Marlboro pack in his coat pocket. He lit the end with a flick of a lighter, and waited for Hanna to fling open the door in his usual excited manner. Which Hanna did, already halfway to blurting out some incomprehensible babble before Worth cut him off.

"About time," he barked. "Connie went out ta look fer ya ages ago."

Hanna closed the door and stumbled to the doctor's desk, gasping for air and clutching the desktop with white fingers. Worth took in the younger man's sweaty and pale complexion and look of complete horror on his face, but did not comment and instead waited for an explanation.

Finally, once he somewhat composed himself, Hanna looked at the doctor with wide, alarmed eyes. "I've snapped."

Worth took a drag of his cigarette and blew out a plume of yellow-grey smoke, regarding Hanna carefully. "You've been snapped since th' day I met yer scrawny ass, Hanna," he remarked.

Hanna gritted his teeth, screwing his eyes shut as if in some form of excruciating pain. "No, Worth. I mean I've actually gone fucking _insane_ because I've just found out that the Slender Man _is real_ and now I'm in deep shit because my client's corpse is missing, I thought I nearly lost Johnny and freaked the fuck out trying to find him and then he appears and can't remember a fucking _thing_ about what happened to us in the forest. And now my chest is hurting like a fucking bitch, I think I've finally gone batshit and _Jesus fucking Christ,_ Worth, I can't _take _this anymore!"

Hanna shoved himself away from Worth's desk and paced the space of his office, curling and uncurling his fists and angrily wiping away the tears. Worth noticed the blood on his hands and clothes, and briefly wondered what had happened. He looked back up when the red head stomped back to his desk, and grabbed the pack of Marlboro's from the doctor's coat pocket. Without a word being uttered between them the red head grabbed Worth's lighter, lit the cigarette, and tossed the lighter back onto the desktop.

Propping himself on the desk, the two men sat in silence and smoked.

"Prefer Camel," Hanna said, after a moment

Worth snorted. "You would. Freebasing's too weak on tha' shit."

"It's better than Bensen and Hedges, they filter all the tar out."

"True."

Worth didn't ask how Hanna knew all this. Instead he took a final gulp of much-needed nicotine, stabbed the end into a plastic ashtray at his elbow and got up. "Righ'," he said, "Enough prom-queen drama. Get up an' lemme take a look at yer hand."

Hanna wanted very much to tell Worth that his injured hand was the _last _thing on his agenda to attend to, but with a glance up at the doctor's steely expression he complied. He stubbed out his own cigarette and followed Worth into his operating room. Hanna took his usual seat on the table while Worth hunted for his medical bag. In the subsequent silence Hanna rolled his tongue over the roof of his mouth, tasting the acrid after-taste of the nicotine and welcoming the slight calm it brought to his frantic head.

Worth placed his medical bag next to Hanna, and pulled out a roll of gauze and antiseptic. Without a word he took the red head's bandaged hand and unwrapped it, briefly glancing up at Hanna when he winced in pain. He dumped the used bandages into a bin and set to work, studying the blackened tissue of the wound.

"Poison's weakened," he muttered, turning the red head's hand over to study his palm. He raised an eyebrow. "Well, tha's odd."

Unease tugged at Hanna. "What?"

"Th' wound at th' palm," the doctor said, motioning to the flesh. "'S healed a lot quicker than I thought it would."

He pulled out a pair of forceps from his medical bag and prodded at the wound, noting with interest at how a new layer of skin had began to replace the blackened layer, which flaked off at the contact.

"Is that a good thing?" Hanna asked anxiously.

Worth gave him a _What do you think? _look and popped open the cap of the antiseptic. With a cotton swab he dabbed at the wound, both on Hanna's palm and upper hand, ignoring the red head's hiss at the stinging that resulted.

"So," Worth started, as he put away the antiseptic and began to unwind the gauze. "Mind explainin' yerself and th' hissy fit you jes' pulled?"

Hanna pursed his lips and fiddled with the forceps Worth had placed next to him. "This is going to sound crazy–"

"Kid, yer th' fuckin' _definition _of crazy."

"Shut up and let me speak."

Worth scoffed, but stayed quiet. Hanna began to explain, from when he received the text from Mrs. Salleh earlier that day to when he found the previously-missing Johnny in the apartment who couldn't remember what happened. All the while Worth re-bandaged Hanna's hand, his own fingers now dusted with dried blood. When Hanna had finished he was shaking, more tears threatening to fall.

"I-I just don't know what the fuck is going on anymore, Worth," he was saying, overwhelmed, gripping the operating table tightly. "I don't – I don't fucking _know._"

"Welcome ta th' world."

"Fuck off, Worth, I'm having a meltdown here and I really don't need your sarcasm right now."

"Be tha' as it may," the doctor said, giving Hanna a hard look, "Ya need _me_. Wot was it you said? 'And righ' now, yer th' only person who makes sense.'"

Hanna regretted saying that, but knew that it was true. "Worth, seriously."

"Fine, fine."

"So what do I do?"

"I dunno."

_"Worth –"_

"Hanna, th' Slender Man does _not _exist. End o' story."

The red head felt like screaming. _"Christ_ on a _bike_, Worth! Then how the hell do you explain _this –"_

Hanna wrenched back his sleeve to reveal his bruises, lips pursed as he stared at Worth's face for some kind of reaction.

The doctor however, did not react. He looked at Hanna's arm, then back up at Hanna, a single brow raised. "Congrats, Hanna," he said. "You have an arm."

"What?" Hanna replied, taken aback. He jabbed at his arm. "No, I meant the brui –"

Hanna looked at his arm. There were no bruises.

His stomach fell somewhere by his ankles.

"… Oh."

The world took on a decidedly paler shade.

Hanna stared at his arm, stared at it long and hard in disbelief. He half-heartedly willed the bruises to appear, hoping that they were actually there – because they were the only evidence that Hanna was not, in fact, going insane.

_But now,_ he thought, weakly, _now they're not there anymore. That means that this might all be some really bad nightmare, that it's been psychosomatic all this time._

"Psychosomatic," he whispered aloud, his surroundings beginning to sway. "It has to be… psychosomatic."

He heard Worth say something, felt hands holding him by his shoulders as his body began to lean forwards involuntarily.

_But it isn't,_ a part of him thought, _you know that it isn't._

Again, Worth was saying something, louder this time but still muffled to Hanna's ears as his head was filled with a soft ringing. It sounded like Mrs. Salleh's cell phone, and vaguely he remembered picking it up and reading that message that had sent him running.

He couldn't feel his body anymore, couldn't move his limbs that felt unfamiliar and heavy.

_This isn't happening, _he told himself.

He felt decidedly ill, distraught. He couldn't focus on himself, only on the numb horror unfolding in his chest. His chest that was suddenly even emptier and aching heavier than before.

_But it is._

It seemed like he was sliding off some kind of parapet. And pulling him by his wrists was the constricting but oddly calming touch of the Slender Man, faceless and tall and spider-like. His gelatinous fingers sunk like ice into Hanna's bones. He drew him out, pulling him away and into the awaiting shadows that coagulated and danced so prettily.

He thought of the text message on Mrs. Salleh's phone.

_Don't look behind you, Hanna._

And Hanna smiled with agony.

...

Worth felt his stomach lurch when Hanna went limp in his arms, the red head's face pressed into his chest. "Hanna?" he said, shaking the man's shoulders. "Hanna!"

The smaller man did not reply. Worth, worried now, pushed the red head off him and caught him as he nearly fell backwards on the table. With little difficulty, Worth rearranged Hanna so that he was lying down. The smaller man had gone ashen, lips curled into a slight but disturbing smile. Worth noticed that the edges of lips were starting to turn blue. His heart stuttered. He jammed two fingers to Hanna's jugular, looking for a pulse.

He waited.

"Shit."

...

_Hanna opened his eyes. He knew he was dreaming this time._

_He expected to find himself face-to-face with the Slender Man in his apartment, where the other dream had left off, but instead found himself in the forest. It was night, for his surroundings were made of dark shapes and a dense silence. The air was cold._

This isn't right, _he thought as he looked around in uncertainty. _How am I capable of conscious thought?

_His attention was drawn to the ground, more specifically to the area he was standing in. He stood in the centre of a complete circle drawn in the reddish dirt, his feet put together in the middle point of a giant 'x' scrawled through that circle. His throat tightened._

_A shift in the air in front of him, and Hanna's head snapped up. The Slender Man stood just outside the circle. The hairs on the back of the red head's neck stood up, and pain knifed through his chest as magic instinctively rushed to his fingertips._

_For a moment they just observed each other, the Slender Man tall and unmoving, Hanna shivering and panicked._

_"Why are you d-doing this?" Hanna found himself asking after a while, surprised at his own voice breaking the stagnancy of the quiet._

_The Slender Man did not reply, only cocked his head to the side as if in question._

_"I – I know you're not real!" the red head cried hesitantly, voice growing louder. He balled his hands into trembling fists. "I know –"_

Do you.

_Abruptly the Slender Man was a foot in front of him. Hanna was unable to recoil, body jolting into stiffness almost instantly. He hadn't seen the Slender Man move._

_"Y-you... you can talk."_

No.

_The answer came fast and low, like a blow to to the stomach. Hanna stared, grinding his molars together in fear, unable to tear his face away from the Slender Man's missing one. The entire forest was silent, so terrifyingly silent. Hanna came to realise that it had not been the Slender Man replying, but his own thoughts. His eyes widened._

_"How –?"_

The mind plays tricks.

_Again the answer, in his own calm, collected thoughts. The Slender Man slowly raised a hand, and frost collected around Hanna's throbbing heart. He dreaded the recognisable lull of his entire body, the artificial limpness and safety washing over him in bouts of chamomile softness. He tried to fight off the smile threatening to split across his face, the urge to lean into the Slender Man's open and approaching palm._

_"I-I am not crazy," Hanna hissed, mostly to himself, desperately attempting to get himself to believe it._

You are.

_"N-no."_

Yes.

_"NO!"_

_Hanna lashed out, breaking the Slender Man's hold and momentarily regaining control over his body. His fist did not hit the ethereal body before him, instead passed through frigid air. Gasping at the sudden release of control, he spun around fearfully to see if the Slender Man had moved._

_But he saw no one._

_Hanna breathed, throat gradually relaxing and blood rushing through his head. The forest was quiet, but not silent._

_He sank down to the ground, sobbing._

* * *

**Please read and review, your input would be most helpful!**

**No flames, thank you.**


	11. Chapter XI

**And the next chapter! My deepest thanks to all my readers, once again.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter XI

The handle of a door twisted. It froze for a moment, locks being turned with gentle but audible _klk-klk's_. After a still moment the door swung open, creaking, and light pooled into the apartment.

In the doorway stood the Slender Man.

...

"Chrissakes, Hanna," Worth hissed. "Wake _up!"_

He put his fingers to the motionless red head's carotid pulse again, waiting for a beat. He noted grimly that Hanna's body temperature was dropping, and that his fingers and lips were gaining an uncomfortable blue-purple colour.

Inside, the doctor was screaming.

Worth pursed his lips, finding no pulse, and put his hands to Hanna's chest, forcing the emotions from his mind. _Emotions breed thoughts and thoughts breed hysteria_, the calm voice of his medical instructor reminded him. _Hysteria must be put aside, eradicated. Focus on the patient. Find the problem. Diagnose the problem. Break down the problem. Devise a solution. Apply the solution. Don't let the patient die._

"Don't let th' patient die," Worth repeated. Mechanical, methodical, he set to work.

_Chest compressions – 30._

"One – two, three – four…"

_Allow for total chest recoil._

Worth removed his hands, waited, watching the body's chest slowly reposition from the pressure.

_Open airway._

He put two fingers to the body's forehead, another two to the chin, and tilted the head back. Hanna's smile did not alter. Worth ignored it.

_Rescue breaths – 2._

Worth pinched Hanna's nose closed and inhaled. He pressed his mouth to the red head's and slowly exhaled, eyes unmoving from Hanna's chest. He waited for it to rise, for the air to be drawn out of his mouth. No sign of such.

_If first rescue breath is unsuccessful, commence with second._

Repositioning Hanna's head, Worth inhaled another breath and repeated. He focused on the chest. No movement.

_If no sign of life, repeat above steps._

Worth found it hard to stop his hands from shaking. He had dealt with death before. He knew it like an old friend, having experienced it personally. He had dealt with _Hanna _dying before, time upon time – but there was no amount of familiarity that could stop the fresh and mounting panic threatening to flood him every time the younger man was stretched out on his operating table, unmoving, the probability of losing him a gaining factor that burned brightly and maliciously in Worth's mind.

_Focus on the patient, _his instructor's voice reminded him sharply, as he had so many years ago when the doctor had been but a student. Worth had always held a great disdain for him, joining his friends in the constant mockery of his cold and disapproving persona. And yet, though Worth would never readily admit it, it was this instructor's knowledge and advice that stuck with him – even after dropping out of school. Because of this, Worth had been able to snatch Hanna off the brink of death every time he wandered there.

But now, as the doctor compressed the red head's chest with systematic efficiency, he suspected that the instructor's advice would fall short.

...

The Slender Man regarded the space of the apartment. Considered its length, its width, and noted with curiosity the small ruins that were carved into the crown molding of the ceiling. They were small, almost invisible to the naked eye. But the Slender Man, who did not have eyes, did not have this problem.

With ease the being entered, the door closing without any force. He moved across the floor with leisurely, graceful sweeps of his impossibly long legs, stopping mid-stride when there was a sudden knock at the door. An impatient voice followed.

"Oi, Zombie-guy. Are you there?"

The Slender Man turned, stared at the door. There was more knocking.

"Hello?"

The Slender Man began to walk towards the door.

"Anybody home?"

The Slender Man reached a gelatinous hand towards the handle.

"Ugh, fine. I guess I'll just drop a note or whatever…"

The Slender Man wrapped his fingers around the handle, but paused as a slip of paper slid under the door. The person on the opposite side moved away, muttering.

The Slender Man looked down at the card. On it was scribbled a message in neat, red handwriting.

_Saw Hanna run to Worth's alone. Meet there now. – Conrad_

The Slender Man looked up and was gone.

...

Worth, at this point, had gotten hold of his notes. He searched through them – yellowed pages of lined paper, scrawled with his messy chicken-scratch handwriting – attempting to find a certain page. He tried his best to ignore how much he was shaking.

Finally, he found it. Throwing the other pages aside, the doctor raised his right hand in benediction. He looked to Hanna, heart pounding.

"I dunno what shit you've gotten yerself inta," he said, quietly. "But fer god's sake, Hanna – _don't die."_

With that he began to chant.

_"Dok'h et vrok'h sa, o' mosh'd'ae phasma, na ket dae tosh'd'h," _Worth said, tongue smoothing over the harsh pronunciations of the Celtic.

There was a distinct shift in the air, a certain crackle of undercurrents. Worth licked his lips, throat growing dry. _"Avae na temp'h, ke'petro de choso mosh'd'ae'p."_

His ears popped, and it seemed like something was standing in his peripheral vision. The doctor didn't dare look, staring at the words on the page clutched in his trembling grasp.

_"Hava fla'ae, mok'tra. Et hinc, pa't'kep!"_

He waited. His heart was thundering. He did not look anywhere but at the pages before him. He waited.

Something moved at his side, something dark and tall. He saw a hand that was white and reaching for him. The fingers wrapped around his wrist.

_Oh, fuck me, _he thought.

And then Conrad was shoving his way through the door behind him, yelling, "Worth, have you seen –"

Worth whirled, throat constricting in fright. Conrad was halfway through the door, one hand around the handle, stricken with horror at the sight of Hanna.

"Oh, god," he said, unmoving. His voice grew higher in pitch as he visibly started to quake. _"Oh god!"_

"God ain't gonna do shit, Peaches," Worth snapped savagely, able to find his voice and slamming the papers to the floor. His wrist was burning where the fingers had touched it. "You broke my fuckin' concentration and' now Hanna's prob'ly –"

He couldn't finish the sentence.

Turning away, his heart dropped.

"C'mon, Hanna," he whispered – desperately, hopelessly. "Don't… Don't. Just… _don't."_

...

Someone was calling his name.

Hanna opened his eyes. He was on his back, blinking up at a ceiling that was oddly familiar in its cracked and stained entirety. Somebody was standing next to him, talking, but he could not make out the words.

Trying to move, he found that he was frozen to whatever it was that he was lying on. Alarmed, the red head willed his limbs to move, his muscles to pull, but they were stuck. A cold was set in his bones, heavy and lulling – a kind of soft blackfrost that wrapped itself lovingly over each tendon, each tissue filament, each nerve. It massaged the blood from his fingers, froze it in its veins. He could feel it trickling through the crevices of his consciousness.

Hanna recognised it, knew it well, and tried to fight back. He tore at himself, urged himself to move, to flush out this creeping state of paralysation that went by only one name – death.

...

"Worth," Conrad started, walking towards the doctor. "Worth, what's wrong with Hanna? Why does he smell more dead than usual? Is he okay? Worth? _Worth! _Are you even listening to –"

"He's _fine_, fer fuck's sakes!" the doctor snarled, turning on the vampire. Conrad shrunk back. Worth gave him a long and hard stare, his insides hot with a protective wrath, then he turned back to Hanna. The wrath settled back to a smolder. Worth knew very well that Hanna was not fine. But he needed to try and convince himself otherwise – before his walls began to crumble.

The doctor felt sick. Dizzy. Completely and utterly shattered. He could not – _would not _– believe that Hanna was dead.

His body started leaning to the side, an exhaustion filling him. His head was light, heartbeat a resounding _thump-thump._ Worth recognised the beginning of a fainting spell. He could analyse it, the voice of his instructor reminding him in his droning, articulated voice of the steps – _cause: hypoxia as an outcome of oxygen levels below 16% at atmospheric pressure, results: temporary loss of consciousness, treatment: restore blood flow to head, check for breathing or obstructions in the throat, wait _– but could not apply his knowledge to it. Conrad was instantly next to him, steadying him with petrified eyes. Worth shrugged him off, trying to tell him to fuck off, but finding his tongue would not work. He could not feel his legs.

There was a very sudden silence, followed by a shot of terror to the doctor's heart like a spike of adrenaline that momentarily sharpened his senses. His ears popped again as the planes shifted. Something was standing on the opposite side of the operating table, reaching for Hanna. Conrad's nails sunk into Worth's arm.

Worth looked up and saw a man with no face.

...

Hanna realised he was in Worth's office. He placed the stains in the ceiling, the stench of formaldehyde and cigarettes. He thought he was safe.

But he knew he wasn't.

Still he struggled for movement. Refusing to fall prey to death and its satin fingers, his mind was kicking and screeching wildly. The only thing he could move was his eyes, but even then he could see little other than the ceiling and the tip of his nose.  
He stopped when a hand passed over his face, the blackened fingertips a blur that he recognised to be Worth's. Fingers wrapped around his right arm. Hope flickered. Hanna was yelling at Worth in his head, waving wildly in faith that he might just see that the red head was still alive. Another hand was placed on his left arm, and another on his chest, and another.

Confused, Hanna wondered who the other person was. He could not see Worth or the other person, could only feel their hands – oddly cold – on his body. He did not hear them talking – in fact, he didn't hear any noise whatsoever.

Only silence.

Shadows fell on his face now, and the hands on his body tightened in their grip – alarmingly, with a brutal strength that terrified Hanna.

_Don't look above you._

His mind seized up when the forms of Worth and Conrad appeared above him, looking down at him. Only they were looking with no eyes. They had no faces, either. Just blank canvases of torn flesh and throbbing, bloody muscles.

Hanna's entire mind shrieked to a single, horrified halt. For the barest of moments his heart stuttered once – twice – thrice – fell still.

_Run._

Magic – snapping and hot – knifed through his chest. And then the blood was rushing in his head, his lungs were flooded with air, and Hanna was ripping himself away from the hands on his body. He broke their hold and rolled off the table, hitting the ground and stunning himself. The silence was deafening now, compressing against him in folds and layers, pierced only by a high-pitched whining that he was shocked to discover he was making.

Something lunged at him from above. Crying out, Hanna shoved himself away from the operating table. He scrambled to his feet – _too quick, too quick, _he wheezed as his vision swam – and stumbled when his legs could not hold his weight. He fell to the ground again, the pain of his knees cracking against the tile jagged in contrast to the sluggish beating of his body.

_Don't look left of you._

The red head started and looked left, saw the figure of Worth standing there.

_Don't look right of you._

There was Conrad.

_Don't look in front of you._

Hanna's stomach lurched at the sight of Galahad standing before him.

He knew what was coming next.

_Don't look behind you._

Hanna didn't need to – he knew who, what, was standing behind him. The hairs on his arms were standing up, the magic in his chest was spitting and pulling at the fibres of his lungs and the cartilage between his ribs, and his mind was screaming while his body lapsed into stillness.

The four figures stood absolutely frozen in their spots, staring at the red head. None of them moved, the air did not sift, and Hanna could not breathe. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He didn't _want _to believe what he was seeing. These were not his friends. They couldn't be his friends. His friends had faces and could move. His friends would try to comfort him. He was not seeing this. He was not seeing this. But he was. He was seeing the people he knew and loved turn on him. He was seeing them fall prey to the man standing behind him. Behind him there was a man, a being, a spider, who was doing all of this. He was controlling them. He was controlling Hanna. He was the reason for all of this. All of this was real – and it was time to stop believing otherwise.

_Look behind you, Hanna._

And Hanna did.

...

He didn't remember getting up, nor did he remember walking to the forest. Yet here he was, standing in the middle of a small clearing, swathed in cold sweat and darkness. It was as if he had temporarily descended into Wonderland and had now come back to the surface, mind blank save for a dulled headiness that may have been the result of a tremor of emotions to the body.

He blinked, vision struggling to grow accustomed to the fog of shadows. There was a throbbing in his chest that he couldn't place.

_How –? _he thought, and then remembered.

Stiffening, Hanna instantly looked down to where he was standing and – sure enough – found himself placed in the centre of an 'x' surrounded by a circle.

_My dream,_ he breathed. _It's exactly like my dream._

Only instead of the symbol being scrawled in the dirt and pine needles on the forest floor, it was drawn cleanly and precisely with a dark and wet substance. Only then did Hanna became aware of the smell hanging in the air, a slight stench of something familiar. Hesitantly, he inhaled. As instantaneous as a stab to the heart the red head's chest, nose, and mouth were flooded with the acrid, metallic, and pungent presence of blood.

He jolted with fright when something splattered on his forehead, snapping his head up to the treetops above. There was a figure perched above him, a mass of shapes that didn't look _quite right. _Staring at it, the red head slowly began to realise that he recognised the mass. It was the figure of a person, hanging lopsidedly from a branch in such an awkward and bent way that it made Hanna's skin crawl. He could make out the form of an arm, held out towards him. Blood was dripping down its fingers.

A sliver of moonlight peeked out from the canopy and alighted upon the figure. Its head was looking in the direction of Hanna, only it had no face.

Looking past the mutilated flesh and muscle, there was no mistaking Galahad trying to reach for him.

Hanna became overwhelmed with nausea and horror. He could not stop the contents of his stomach rising to his throat and into his mouth, the bile that had collected in his glands gushing across the roof of his mouth. He tried to scream, but his frozen body only allowed for the vomit to sputter out of his tight lips and into the air. Sour and burning, the vomit suffocated him and dribbled out of his mouth and onto his clothes. Now there was blood on his tongue, there were tears, an irrefutable need to fall to his knees and rip the swelling and erratic emotions from his very being.

He no longer had a grip on what was real and what was not. He knew that trying to understand would warrant suicide. He had broken down entirely now, his own stubbornness or perhaps stupidity the only thing making him hold on – but even that was failing now.

The Slender Man walked out of the darkness towards him. He stopped, once again, just outside the circle. His suit was immaculate. His fingers were elegant and beckoning. He stood tall, ethereal, almost smug, in the contiguous silence.

_You bastard,_ Hanna found himself thinking. His voice rang out into his mind and seemed to echo throughout the forest – exhausted and terrified. And yet he felt the anger, the fury, which the silence around him was trying to smother. _You… bastard!_

The Slender Man cocked his head to the side appraisingly. Calculating.

_Give… them back!_ Hanna demanded. The anger was hot now, crackling. _Give… my friends… _back!

The Slender Man straightened his head. Hanna got the creeping feeling that he was smiling. The tendrils of black slid out from his back in rolling, curling lengths. They stretched up and to the either side of the being. It was only then that Hanna saw the three bodies lying on the ground, practically invisible in the darkness. The tendrils slid over the figures and raised them up, their bodies limp and bedraggled – like dolls.

The Slender Man put Worth, Conrad, and Mrs. Salleh onto their feet. They were still missing faces.

Hanna's heart jumped. _Mrs. Salleh –_

A tendril ripped across Mrs. Salleh's stomach, splitting her open with vicious accuracy. A thick sheet of coagulated blood spattered onto the ground, the strength of the impact enough to spread the substance as far as Hanna's shoes. Like a rose bud cut from its stem, Mrs. Salleh's upper half separated from her lower and they both fell to the ground, twitching madly.

Intestines spilling around the feet of Conrad and Worth, Hanna could only stare open-mouthed at the body until, finally, it ceased to move.

The Slender Man, at this point, was holding something in his hands. With a sickening jerk to his stomach, Hanna realised that it was Mrs. Salleh's face. The Slender Man, tentacles dissipating, bent down to the young woman's broken corpse. He stroked the face that stared unseeingly at him softly, almost tenderly, before putting it back into its previously-missing place on Mrs. Salleh's head.

Hanna swallowed thickly. _You want a face,_ he breathed. _Don't you?_

The Slender Man straightened, giving Mrs. Salleh one last look before turning his eyeless gaze to the red head. Raising one hand, the being took a long-legged step forwards. The planes did not shift and Hanna did not see movement, but the Slender Man was standing right in front of him now, fingers sinking into the flesh of his face and pulling.

_Yes,_ said the Slender Man through Hanna's thoughts. _I want _your_ face._

* * *

**Please read and review, your input will be most helpful!**

**No flames, thank you.**


	12. Chapter XII

**And here it is - the final chapter of _InWhichThere'sASlenderMan._**

**I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has been following this story of mine and who have been giving me support and much-needed critique. I do apologise for my terrible sense of timing when it comes to updating chapters, so for your patience I thank you whole-heartedly. Also an apology for any grammatical/formatting errors of any sort on both dA and , transferring the two have always been a bit tricky.**

**Once again, thank you for reading this story and I truly hope you enjoyed it. I'd really appreciate it if you could give me a final word on this chapter and/or the whole story itself. Tips for improvement would be fantastic!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter XII

The fingers sank into Hanna's cheeks and the Slender Man's words rang in his mind, _I want your face._

The weight of the words stunned Hanna, froze his blood in his veins. The sheer velocity of the meaning pushed the breath right out of him, causing his legs to collapse. With a short, sharp shot of adrenaline to his fingers, the red head's hands found the wrists of the Slender Man and held onto them for support. The being's limbs were smooth and lacquered, unnaturally cold, and with what little strength he tried to harbour Hanna clung to them in attempt to pull himself up and away.

Still the Slender Man's fingers were in his face, boring into his flesh and through the ligaments as if they were butter and the digits knives. The pain was immediate, overpowering, beginning in a crown of blackthorns upon Hanna's head and bleeding down his face in curtains of agony. He could _feel _the fingers inside him, the lulling darkness that began to permeate and ooze and trickle through every crevice of his being. Hanna screamed and screamed, pulling at the wrists and the hands that sunk even deeper into his face, his body, his soul, and screamed for the being to let go.

_"LET ME GO!"_ Hanna screeched. _"PLEASE! PLEASE, FOR CHRIST'S SAKES, LET ME GO!"_

_Mine,_ the Slender Man said in the red head's steady thoughts. _Your face is mine._

Still Hanna struggled, fought at the darkness that threatened to numb him into that dangerously delightful state of false comfort and security. _"STOP! STOP!"_

_I will have it._

It was getting harder to talk, harder to struggle. His heart beat almost deafeningly in his head and chest, grating against his ribs where the magic twisted and lashed and screeched. _"N-NO!"_

_Yes, I will._ The Slender Man leaned closer, black tendrils surrounding him like snakes, the paralysation penetrating Hanna deeper. _I want it and I will have it._

Hanna locked his own wide, terrified eyes to the face that pressed itself closer, to the expressionless monster that had tormented him in both the waking and dreaming world. He lost himself in that vast expanse of bare, sickly pale flesh, feeling the way in which the horror dug its filthy nails into his heart and his memory. His arms were aching from how tight he was holding onto the being. He held onto this thing, this monster, this spider, and the image of himself – choking, dying – holding onto this being – overwhelming, taking – so desperately was almost laughable as it was petrifying.

_Give it to me,_ said the Slender Man, words settling like frostbite on each breath Hanna took. The being's grip grew tighter, hungrier, needier. _Give it to me now._

Here Hanna gripped the sole cause for his torment, the rabbit that had led him down to this self-destructive wasteland akin to a decidedly darker Wonderland. He gripped this with white knuckled fingers as if it were the last means of keeping himself going. And how much further was that? A footstep? A heartbeat? Here he held the Slender Man, he held all his fear and worry and defeat because it was _physical,_ it was _here._ It was not a simple manifestation of human vulnerabilities, something Hanna had dealt with before. It was an actual _presence_. A presence that was very much physical, and very much frightening.

_Stop fighting, child,_ the Slender Man's voice echoed, tendrils growing taller. Frenzied. Enclosing. _You have lost._

Here was the cancer. On the ground and in the tree were the remains of the cells it had killed. The cancer was turning the body against itself. The body, Hanna, was in a stage of desecration. It had begun in the mind, and was now rapidly eating away his soul. A cancer. An elegant, soothing, silken cancer crafted by the fingers that were currently snapping the muscles of Hanna's face from the bone.

_You have lost._

And Hanna _had_ lost. Lost himself. Lost his friends. Lost Gallahad. He'd lost Gallahad. And, oh, how that realisation struck the red head like a final finishing blow to the head. He remembered the promise he made when he first started having the nightmares, the one where only Gallahad's arms – torn at the elbow, decaying as they clutched the legs of the stool Hanna had perched upon – remained. _"I'm never gonna let that happen" _Hanna had said. He forced that promise upon himself and to the gentle zombie, though the latter had not been there to hear it. Only now did Hanna come to realise that that promise had been meant for everybody he knew – the people who were fated to be thrown into this thickening cesspool he had unknowingly stepped into.

_You have lost._

He had broken that promise. He had wanted to protect them, but in turn had only killed them. In his mind's eye, Hanna could see their bodies on the ground. He could see Gallahad's broken form in the tree branches, holding his hand to him in one last plea for safety, security. For a brief moment the red head was glad that his partner didn't have a face to look at – no emotion, of which was scarce as it was, to break Hanna apart on the spot with guilt.

_You have lost._

Hanna was told to not look behind him – but he did. He looked back and found this physical monstrosity that was a cause for trauma, that had a motivation of the most gruesome fashion, and because Hanna had finally acknowledged that his fear was not just psychological the fear had turned to full-fledged terror verging on total annihilation of sanity – all in the form of a tall man in a suit with no face.

_You have lost._

Then it hit him.

_You have lost._

The Slender Man was _real._

_You have lost._

And if he was real that meant he could be beaten.

_You have lost._

There it was – the spark. The tip of the match being struck, alighting a fury that was small, at first, but contained an awaiting conflagration. Hanna recognised it, seized it, let it burn inside him. Within the utter despair he found the little well of strength, the ink that sizzled and boiled and was spurred on by the sudden and fervent hope that all was not lost.

Hanna was able to focus on the Slender Man's missing face, pushing past the blackening of his vision. He felt the magic sharpen in his chest, turn electric, bright.

_"No,"_ the red head managed to hiss. _"It's _you _who has lost."_

The tendrils rose and bristled, the temperature and the silence dropping like icy daggers. The Slender Man wrenched the red head closer to him by his face, making Hanna bite back a howl.

_Insolent child,_ the Slender Man said. _You do not realise the potential of this face._

Hanna's lip curled back in a snarl, blood pouring out of his mouth. _"It's just a face."_

The Slender Man reeled back, as if outraged, and he grew taller and larger before Hanna's very eyes. Hanna's fury rose with the tendrils, began to slide up the walls of his lungs and up into his bleeding and tight throat, burning at the darkness and the frost. The Slender Man shimmered, crackled, started to waver like static on a screen. For the briefest of seconds the being's grip on Hanna's face weakened, the darkness faltering, and the oppressive weight of the silence lightened ever so slightly.

But the Slender Man snapped back into vision, just as forceful as before, and his voice in Hanna's thoughts boomed inside the red head's mind. _You do not understand your own potential, hollow child,_ the Slender Man rumbled. _You cannot see what I see._

"What is there to _see?" _Hanna demanded. "I'm just a person!"

The Slender Man pulled him close, tendrils ghosting up and around the red head's arms, torso, legs, hissing and oily to the touch. _You are a child, boy, in a man's body,_ said the Slender Man, words drawing out to a painful slowness. Hanna's skin prickled with dread. _I know of what happened to you as a youngling. Your soul died, but your body remained. You possess the soul of a child though your body is that of a man. Do you not _see, _child, what this gives you?_

Hanna's heart had stopped dead. The colour, what little remained, had drained from his cheeks. "W-What?" he stuttered. It felt as if he had been stabbed. _"What?"_

The being pushed on, the tendrils thickening, growing, wreathing Hanna in their firm, cold grasp with the sweetest of hisses – as if coaxing the anger and power from him, drawing it up to the surface of his skin so that they may slowly peel it away.

_It is only a child that can see what is not meant to be seen,_ the Slender Man told him. _It is only a child that can bring that unseen world to its knees. A child has the potential to take the magical planes in its hands and crush it because it does not know of its own power. A man grows to forget this power, unbeknownst that if they kept it they could learn to control it and make it _stronger._You, hollow boy, are a child that has such a power in a man's body that can control this power to the point of utter absolution like that of your 'god' your kind so devotedly give their obeisance to._The being spat out the word 'god' as if it was bile, the venom in the word startlingly abrasive in comparison to the Slender Man's cool composure.

_And what_, the Slender Man said, _is a god to a non-believer?_

Hanna could only stare as the pieces fit together. "That's why you want my face," he whispered. "You want to have that power."

_Precisely,_ the Slender Man hissed, the word wrapping around Hanna like an embrace. _I will be able to finally take this unseen world as my own. The unseen will bow before me as they should – just like your loved ones did._

The words were a trigger, for the fury ruptured. With a roar Hanna took the hands on his face and ripped them away, screaming as the flesh tore and blood spurted around him. Pure instinct set in, magic flooding inside of him. He felt the current of the magic darting to his fingers, collecting underneath the tips of his fingers and shrieking to be released. And Hanna did just that.

He took fistfuls of the tendrils that writhed and squeezed and burst blood vessels, and with a snarl he tore into them with his magic crackling around his hands. This was no rune magic, this was the pure inner energy that the red head had stored only for a situation such as this – a last resort.

The Slender Man, not expecting the abrupt change, jolted backwards, shuddering in and out of vision erratically. All around the red head the silence was screeching.

Still Hanna raked and tore at the tendrils that desperately, ravenously attempted to hold him down and fill him with sedative darkness – though their strength was failing, the Slender Man's control was wavering as he continued to jerk and shimmer and fracture. The being's physicality was his one flaw.

And, finally, Hanna was free. He stumbled backwards, slipping in his own blood, and before the Slender Man could recover he was sprinting into the undergrowth. He ignored the smarting of his face and the blood that oozed out of his mouth. He focused on running, on escaping, and pressed the loose flesh to his face even though the feeling of his own exposed muscle threatened to heave his stomach. The magic was throbbing in his chest and shooting spasmodically through his limbs. His body was not used to this kind of raw energy but, somehow, thankfully, it had not succumbed to it to the point of destruction. Hanna had seen such things happen. Remembering the Slender Man's words, he deemed this ability due to his own personal body-versus-soul situation.

Shaking the sweat that had dripped in his eyes, Hanna concentrated solely on escape. The magic filled him with vigour that was enough to keep him going – he needed more than a footstep, more than a heartbeat, if he was going to take down the atrocity that pursued him.

_You cannot run, hollow child, _said Hanna's thoughts in the Slender Man's words. Hanna's heart leapt into his throat with fright, but he forced himself to keep going.

Jumping over a log, the red head snuck a glance over his shoulder and saw the Slender Man only a few meters behind him. He was getting closer.

"Shit!" Hanna cursed, changing course and heading left.

The ground abruptly sloped downwards, causing Hanna to lose his footing. The red head yelped and tumbled, half-staggering half-rolling down the slope with the undergrowth snagging at his clothes and scratching his skin. Thorny roots caught his arm and he was dragged to the ground, face grinding against the rocks and soil until his mouth was filled with dirt. He fell down the rest of the slope and hit the bottom with a _crk! _of his ribs and a large chunk of limp flesh splitting from his face. The scream of agony barely made it out of his mouth before the red head was back on his feet and running again, a fresh sheet of blood pouring down his face.

Twisting around to look up at the slope, he saw the Slender Man standing atop it. Around him was a mane of black, inky tendrils.

Hanna swivelled back around and continued to run, his lungs burning. "Shit shit _shit!"_

It was dark and unnaturally cold in the forest, of which was growing thicker the more Hanna delved into it. His clothes stuck to him with sweat, dirt, and blood – though his skin was covered in gooseflesh from the cold and terror – and this made it all the more difficult for the red head as he trumped and dodged between trees and ferns. The silence was overpowering, bone-chilling, and it weighed down upon him like a great shadow. With it there was the exhaustion and defeat that threatened to spill over the brim of this last reserve of strength Hanna was using. Determinedly, he shoved it down and let the magic seal over it. No time to rest.

_But running screaming through the dark is useless,_ he told himself as he weaved between a collection of tall pine trees. _I need a plan. A plan. Yeah, a plan._ Something white and blurred caught his eye and he looked sharply to the side. He spotted the gelatinous and elongated fingers just as they were about to wrap around his throat. His eyes widened. _Oh FU –_

Wrenching himself the opposite way, the magic sputtered to life in his fingers once again. He clamped his palms together and let the magic collect there in the sweating bases, growing into a ball of crackling white light. Hanna stumbled backwards, momentarily concerned that he'd lose control over his magic, and then he steadied. With a curl of his lip and a cry the red head launched the ball of light at the approaching being.

The silence howled as the light enveloped the being, shattering the impossibly tall monster into a thousand fragments of writhing darkness and frost. Hanna dove behind a tree for cover, curling into a ball with his arms over his head as a means of protection as the fragments exploded around him, hitting every possible surface like gunshots of the most terrifying and soul-clenching quiet. The fragments shivered and fizzled, cracking and crumbling and vanishing into themselves until –

Stillness.

A moment slowly dragged by.

A minute. An hour. A year. A decade.

Whatever the time, Hanna remained where he was, frozen to the ground. With only his heart hammering in his head and the blood pooling onto his tongue, the red head found himself too petrified to move. Instead he opened his eyes and peered through the crack between his arms. He looked at the space where the Slender Man was – and saw nothing. His breath caught in his throat.

Hanna had beaten him.

Slowly, carefully, Hanna lowered his arms. He stared at the spot disbelievingly.

Hanna had _beaten _the Slender Man.

He put a shaking hand to his heart, felt how it was throwing itself against his chest, and allowed himself to breathe. The sound echoed in the surrounding silence.

Hanna froze.

It was silent.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled when there was a shift in the magical planes behind him. Horror dawned.

"Oh," he said. "Oh shit."

The Slender Man descended upon him. Hanna cried out and launched himself away, only to have his arm caught in the steely grasp of many tendrils. The pressure the tendrils exerted was incredible, wholly painful, and Hanna could feel the muscle and bone crunching beneath their grip. Screaming, he jerked and pulled at his arm in attempt to get free, only to have his other arm captured and his body dragged towards the towering, amorphous mass of spitting darkness and a single white face.

_Do you now see how important you are, child?_ the Slender Man demanded, twisting Hanna's own thoughts so that they came out screeching, consuming. _You have attempted to destroy me by using this power you so blindly possess. But you cannot kill what is not real._

Hanna struggled to get away, mind reeling with the Slender Man's words and his own turmoil of emotions. "But you _are_ real!" the red head yelled. "You're _real!_ You're fucking _real!"_

Violently, the Slender Man jerked Hanna up off the ground and threw him back down again, slamming the red head's body into the ground. Hanna gasped, winded, and his body shook as spots swam before his eyes.

The Slender Man looked down upon him like an immaculate god, head cocked to the side smugly, as if he found Hanna's words amusing. _You are contradicting yourself, child,_ the Slender Man told him. _You have been telling yourself all this time that I am not real. There is no use in trying to believe otherwise._

Hanna, breathing raggedly and clutching his thumping chest, looked up at the being with his face contorted in utter hatred. "That's… what… you want me… to think," he wheezed. "This… has all… been a game… to you."

The Slender Man raised his hands, the tendrils following the movement. They slithered in the air, coagulating the silence. _A game you have lost, hollow child._

"You're _REAL!"_ Hanna screamed, blood and spit bubbling out of his mouth. He was seething, unable to control himself anymore as fire and pure unadulterated rage filling him and blinded him. _"YOU'RE FUCKING REAL!_ YOU FUCKING TOOK MY FRIENDS FROM ME AND DROVE ME TO THE POINT OF INSANITY, YOU SICK SON OF A BITCH! I THOUGHT I WAS GOING _CRAZY_. MY _FRIENDS_ THOUGHT I WAS GOING CRAZY. BUT I WASN'T. I NEVER WAS. YOU _WANTED_ ME TO BELIEVE THAT. THAT'S WHY YOU CONTROLLED MR. SALLEH AND MY FRIENDS, WASN'T IT? YOU WANTED ME TO _BELIEVE_ I WAS LOSING IT. WASN'T IT? _WASN'T IT?" _

He lashed at the being, chest heaving and blood roaring in his veins. He was at the breaking point with all this anger sizzling and shrieking inside him. The magic was trembling and threatening to blow, bubbling up and filling each broken thought and petrified muscle with its presence. Still Hanna plunged on furiously, voice dropping to a low and dangerous tone.

_"You,"_ he began in a hiss, "are _real." _Pushing himself up, Hanna got to his feet. The magic was like a coiled serpent inside of him. Light was starting to show through his skin, trickling out of his fingers and palms, burning away at the tendrils. The Slender Man, for a moment, flickered in and out of vision again. Hanna got the distinct understanding that the being was unsure of him now, surprised if not taken aback by the small man's sudden power.

_"You,"_ Hanna continued, seizing the monster's uncertainty, taking a step forward, closer to the increasingly faltering Slender Man, "are real. _You _are the cause for my friends' deaths."

Another step closer. _"You_ are the one who tormented me these past days. _You_ are the cause for all the _shit_ I've been through. _You_ are the one who created this personal _hell_. I will _not_ be your pawn in this chess game anymore, you fucking monster, because _you are real and can therefore be destroyed."_

And, for once in this whole ordeal, Hanna believed himself.

Hanna stared the being right in the face, defying the silence, defying the tendrils that broke his bones, defying the damnable false sense of security that had plagued him so. This darkness was real, it was physical, it could be destroyed by light. And it was just this light that Hanna summoned, allowed it to consume him entirely until the tendrils were bubbling and melting and the Slender Man was stepping back and fracturing to pieces.

"Don't look behind you," said Hanna.

The Slender Man looked down at him, realising what was about to be done, body fracturing and splitting and crackling. The faceless being met Hanna's hardened gaze with his own eyeless one. Reluctantly, the Slender Man dipped his head in final acknowledgement.

_Well played, hollow child._

And then there was blinding light, the screaming of silence and the shattering of darkness. The light seeped into the air and smothered the cold, rolled over Hanna's body, his heart, his lungs, his trembling soul. It filled the entire forest, pulsating and purifying, chasing the shadows back, back, back into the unseen world until they shrivelled up and vanished with hisses.

Slowly, regally, the light dimmed, withdrew, folding in upon itself and relinquishing its hold on the forest and on Hanna. It dimmed, softened, shifting back into the red head's body until it was nothing more than a faint pulse in his veins. There was nothing left but the forest and the silence giving way to simple quiet.

Hanna opened his eyes, found himself on his knees. His palms were bleeding, his arms covered in bruises and blossoms of burst blood vessels. The light had scrubbed him raw, taking his magic and strength with it. Sluggishly, exhaustedly, realising just how tired he was, Hanna raised his eyes to the space before him.

The Slender Man was gone.

And Hanna smiled, because he could not feel the ache in his chest, or the frost in his bones. There was no lull, no silken caress of death, no terror or questions of his own sanity. There was only a sense of belief – a belief that this was real, and that the Slender Man was gone for good.

Though the need to rest was almost overwhelming and his mind was humming with fatigue and trauma, Hanna forced himself to his knees and walked. He staggered through the forest, vision swimming, and got sick numerous times though there was nothing left but blood to extricate. Stumbling on, using the trees and branches to steady himself, he did not stop walking until he found himself in the small clearing where the Slender Man had first brought him.

For a moment Hanna just stood where he was, swaying on the spot, and stared at the circle of blood with the 'x' drawn on it. Lips pursed and a sense of determination pressing him, the red head walked towards the sign and, using his hoodie that he stripped off his sweating body, slowly and meticulously wiped the blood from the ground. Only when the entire sign had been removed, with just a reddish tinge to the dirt as the last evidence of its existence, did Hanna turn to look at the bodies.

Worth and Conrad's limp and broken forms lay next to each other on the ground. Besides each one was their face, bloodied and dirty, expressions oddly peaceful. Hanna looked up and stared at Gallahad, feeling the wrenching of his heart, but without yielding to guilt he jumped as high as he could and grasped the zombie's hanging hand. With a few tries Hanna managed to get the zombie down from the branches. He laid his partner's body next to the others, making sure not to look at the way in which the zombie had been mutilated, and he soon found the matching face in a shrub close by.

Calmly and wearily, Hanna set to work.

He took each face and placed them back onto their respectful owners' body. With a scalpel Hanna found in Worth's pocket, Hanna sliced open his right hand and squeezed the wound so that the blood trickled on each body. An offering. Then, standing up again, Hanna closed his eyes and drew the magic of which the Slender Man had so desperately wanted back to his body. He let it rise and charge him, felt it slithering out of the open wound in his hand. It was attentive, ready for service.

Opening his eyes again, Hanna looked at the magic and its comforting, warm light. "Bring my friends back," he whispered and, kneeling next to each body, he let the magic slip across their torn faces and bodies. The light sunk into the mottled flesh and dead muscle and began to repair it before Hanna's eyes, pulling the tendons back into place, healing broken bone, slowly breathing the life back into their bodies.

Using the blood that flowed from the wound, Hanna drew a simple rune on the palm of his other hand. It was a circle with an 'x' crossed through it. He pointed that hand to his three friends, the rune dripping, and said, _"Forget."_

The planes shifted as the command manifested, unseen but setting to work.

Hanna sat down with a sigh and let himself lie down on the dirt. He touched his own face with his hand, the ripped and bloody flesh tingling as the magic smoothed across it. Initially he fought against the exhaustion, the emotional trauma, that made his eyelids droop. But even he, the only one to ever checkmate an infamous monster at its own game, could not stop the sleep from taking him. He slipped into unconsciousness.

...

And woke up to the smell of something cooking.

Hanna opened his eyes, slurring something even he couldn't understand, and looked up through blearily eyes. He was laying down on something soft and the place he was in smelled of damp and roasting potatoes. Perplexed, the red head tried to sit up from his horizontal position only to cry out in pain when his entire body throbbed and burned. He flumped back down, clutching his aching chest.

Coarse, cool hands were suddenly taking his own and a voice was telling him not to move. Panic knifing at his heart at the sudden appearance of this person, Hanna tried to pull away. The hands only moved to his face and chest, pressing him down gently but firmly. A composed, familiar voice spoke to him from above.

"Calm down, Hanna. It's just me," the voice soothed. "It's just me."

Hanna, confused but somehow less frightened then before, did as the voice requested. He let himself go limp, relaxing his taut muscles, and waited anxiously.

The person who had spoken moved, their footsteps making the floorboards creak, and something was placed into the red head's hand. The latter recognised its shape to be his glasses. He put them on, feeling a slight twinge in his head when his blurred vision abruptly cleared, and when he turned to look at the person he recognised them to be Gallahad.

Eyes widening, Hanna remembered everything.

"G-Gallahad," he managed to stammer. He looked over the zombie, relieved when he saw no immediate wounds or damage. His face was perfectly attached to his head. "What –?"

"You've been out cold for the past two days," the zombie told him, seating himself upon a rickety coffee table, facing Hanna. Hanna recognised the table as well as the couch he was lying on, and realised that they were in the apartment. "We – Worth, Conrad, and I – woke up in the forest and found you there," Gallahad was saying. "You were in very bad shape so we took you back to Worth's where he patched you up." He motioned to Hanna's arms, which were bandaged.

Hanna looked to his partner, not quite knowing what to say. "D-D'you know what happened?" he asked, propping himself up on his elbows. "In the forest, I mean."

Gallahad looked at him steadily, amber eyes studying his partner's face as if contemplating the answer. Eventually he replied, "You and I both know what happened, Hanna."

Hanna gave Gallahad a startled look. "You remember?" he demanded.

"Yes, I do. But Conrad and Worth don't."

"But I used a memory charm on _all _of you!"

At this Gallahad shrugged, clasping his hands together. "I suppose when you've already lost your memory it's hard to lose it again," he answered. After a moment he gave Hanna an oddly hurt look that made the red head's brow crease. "I'm sorry," Gallahad said. "For not believing you at first. I should have realised – "

_"Don't." _Hanna interrupted sharply. Gallahad stopped. The red head held his partner's gaze, fists clenched. He looked away when he couldn't take the questioning look on his partner's face. His cheeks were hot with remorse. "Don't apologise," he said. "Please. It was never your fault."

Gallahad looked at him, the helplessness on his face too much for Hanna to bear. The red head forced himself upright, tears welling in his eyes, and without another word pulled his taller counterpart into an embrace.

The zombie himself was surprised by the action, but he did not need words to understand what Hanna was trying to say. Instead he wrapped his arms around the red head, his chin perched upon the mane of curls, and soothed him when the smaller man began to cry.

"It's okay now, Hanna," he whispered, slowly rocking. He buried his face into the red head's hair, murmuring comforts, realising just how comforted he was that his words were true. "It's okay. Sssh, I'm here. It's okay."

"I'm s-so sorry, Gallahad," Hanna sobbed. "I'm so sorry that I-I lied to you about this shit. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm –"

"Now it's your turn to stop apologising," Gallahad interjected. The red head shuddered, pressing himself into the zombie's chest and holding onto him tightly. He held onto his friend, his best friend, because he had come so close to losing him. And just what, exactly, he would have done if he _had _lost his partner…

He stopped that thought, the sobs threatening to turn into wails, and just focused on the feeling of the zombie's shirt against his cheeks, the gentle rocking of their bodies, the hands that rubbed circles on his back. They stayed like that for a while, unspoken words passing between them, until the despair and sobs had passed and Hanna was able to speak properly again.

He pulled away, lifting his glasses so he could mop his eyes with the back of his hands. "H-How are Worth and Conrad?" he asked. "Are they okay?"

"They're fine. I told them that we were on a case and that we'd all been hit by the demon we were pursuing – that's why we ended up in the forest without any memory of what happened. They believed me, for the most part. Now they're just worried about you," Gallahad reassured him. "Worth especially."

Hanna managed a weak smirk at that, knowing that the doctor would instantly deny such a thing. Gallahad seemed to understand the same thing, for a brief smile ghosted his expression.

Smirk fading, Hanna sniffled. "I thought I lost you, you know?" he said to his partner softly, heart panging. "I thought I lost all of you."

"But you didn't, Hanna," Gallahad told him firmly. "Somehow, someway, you saved us. And that's only because you somehow, someway, managed to kill the Slender Man." The zombie sighed, looking up at the small window where faint light was peeping through. "I don't know why he was so interested in you," he continued, and gave his partner a side-long glance. "But I do know it's something you'd prefer not to share – which is fine," he assured when Hanna started to panic. "It's fine. As long as you're safe and the danger is gone, whatever happened is behind us and does not matter. All that _does _matter is that you're okay."

He looked to Hanna then, the sincerity in his eyes enough to tell Hanna that his partner meant what he said. The red head was touched. Putting his hand over Gallahad's, Hanna smiled his first genuine smile in a while. "I'm okay," he said.

And he meant it.

They both looked up when the oven went off. Gallahad gave Hanna's hand a quick squeeze then got up to attend the potatoes. Hanna heaved a breath, feeling, for what seemed like an excruciatingly long time, a final sense of contentment. He rubbed at his hands, looking at the wound he had inflicted with the scalpel. It had been stitched up neatly and was already beginning to heal. It was over.

Looking down to his left palm, Hanna studied the symbol of the Slender Man that remained there. In his mind he could see the featureless face of the being again. The one that had caused all of this trouble.

Licking his thumb, Hanna rubbed at the symbol until it was gone – extinguishing it and the last of his memory of the Slender Man.

"I will never look behind me again," he whispered.

* * *

**Thanks again, dears, for reading this and supporting me through this.**

**Hanna is Not a Boy's Name (c) Tessa Stone**

**The Slender Man (c) Victor Surge**


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